Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

TRENT RIVER BOARD BILL

Read the Third time, and passed.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT

Street Names and Numbers

Mr. Shepherd: asked the Minister of Transport if he is aware of the fact that the existing state of street naming and numbering is a factor in causing road accidents; and what steps he can take to bring about an improvement.

The Minister of Transport (Mr. Barnes): Yes, Sir. Unsatisfactory street naming and numbering may increase the risk of road accidents by distracting the attention of drivers. I have circulated to local authorities, on whom responsibility in this matter rests, the report of the Departmental Committee on Traffic Signs, 1944, which includes an important paragraph on this subject, and asked them to have regard to the recommendations made. I intend to issue a circular in the near future giving additional guidance on the design of street name plates.

Mr. Shepherd: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that he must show more imagination and drive in this matter? It has been hanging fire for seven years, and unless there is more effort than is now being made the present situation will probably continue for another four or five years.

Mr. Barnes: Yes, but it is really a matter for the local authorities, and it is not always easy to get a general movement throughout the country.

Mr. Bossom: Would the Minister try to bring about some uniformity so that motorists and others will know where to look if they want to find the name of a street or a number?

Mr. Barnes: That was the purpose of the Departmental Committee, and the intention behind my reply is to give general guidance towards uniformity.

Railway Passenger Fares

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Minister of Transport whether he will give an assurance that he will not assent to any further increase in railway passenger fares until this House has had the opportunity to consider them.

Mr. Barnes: The British Transport Commission have not sought my authority for higher railway passenger fares. They have, however, submitted to the Transport Tribunal, for confirmation under Part V of the Transport Act, a draft scheme dealing with all passenger fares on London Transport and on British Railways. If confirmed by the Tribunal, who have invited representative bodies of users to submit their objections or other views on the scheme, it will be brought into force by an Order of the Tribunal and will not require to be approved by Parliament or by me.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Whatever the technical position may be, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a further increase in passenger fares, coming only a year after the last increase, would have such serious economic repercussions as to be of the greatest public importance? In those circumstances, should not the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that he will exercise his powers to prevent any such increase unless and until the House has approved it?

Mr. Barnes: It is something much more than a technical matter.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: No.

Mr. Barnes: There is the constitutional position. Parliament laid this responsibility clearly on the Tribunal, and removed it from the jurisdiction of the Minister. Surely the hon. Member will appreciate that the procedure for investigation here is much more thorough and complete than that which exists respecting any rise that takes place in the cost of any other services or commodities.

Mr. Harrison: Does my right hon. Friend recognise that the present machinery is so restrictive of railway operations that to add any further restriction would make the position almost intolerable for the adjustment of separate rates for railway fares?

Mr. Barnes: I do not intend to impose any further restriction. This procedure was very thoroughly considered and debated, and I know of no other service or of any other business concern that is subject to such rigorous price investigation procedure as are the railways in respect of freights and fares.

Mr. Peter Thorneycroft: On the constitutional point, having regard to the fact that virtually no questions—of any importance—about the conduct of transport can be asked in the House, and having regard to the recurring increases in fare and freight charges, is the right hon. Gentleman giving further consideration, which he promised, to the suggestion that there should be a full inquiry into the administration and economics of the railways before any further increases are made?

Mr. Barnes: That is another matter. The question of an inquiry was debated fully here a few nights ago. I do not agree that Parliament does not have an opportunity to consider these things. During the last two or three years there have been many full dress debates on this subject.

Mr. Leslie Hale: Would my right hon. Friend bear in mind that while, by statute, responsibility is laid upon the Tribunal to consider the commercial aspect of the fares, the question—an important question—of whether passenger fares should be subsidised by the State is a matter for consideration of the House?

Mr. Barnes: I entirely agree, but that hardly arises now. If Parliament wishes at any time to deal with the matter it would not deal with it in the form suggested at the moment.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that his second supplementary answer indicates that railway fares are about the only charges which are not now controlled by Ministers responsible to the House?

Mr. Harrison: What about the newspapers?

Speed Limits

Surgeon Lieut.-Commander Bennett: asked the Minister of Transport whether he will call upon local authorities to review the lengths of road under their control that are restricted to the 30 miles per hour speed limit in order that sections that are not built up or dangerous may be freed from the limit, thus increasing the respect of the motorist for the speed limit and reducing and easing the task of the police.

Mr. Barnes: I have already brought to the notice of local authorities the importance which I attach to the observance of sound principles in the imposition and removal of speed limits and I have expressed the hope that they will periodically review all the roads in their areas.

Surgeon Lieut.-Commander Bennett: Is it not a fact that many local authorities, out of zeal on behalf of their local inhabitants, impose limits on stretches of road which cannot conceivably be called "built-up," thereby severely prejudicing through-traffic? Will the Minister give this tricky subject a good deal of attention to try to reduce the number of stretches of such road in order that the regulations, as in the case of pedestrian crossings, may be more honoured?

Mr. Barnes: Local authorities have not full power in this direction. I have to confirm the order, and I can assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman that very great care is taken over every proposal.

Colonel Clarke: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, while there may be certain places where de-restriction could take place without danger to local inhabitants, there are others where the present regulations make it impossible to impose a 30 mile-an-hour limit which is very much required, as at Burwash in East Sussex?

Mr. Barnes: No, that is not the case. While we conform to the general conditions laid down in the Traffic Act, if there is sufficient evidence of the need for a speed restriction order outside the built-up area, then, provided I have the evidence of the police and local opinion, and the justification of road statistics, I do not hesitate to deal with exceptional instances.

Colonel Clarke: Am I to understand from that reply that the Minister has discretion to define what is a built-up area, and that it does not necessarily mean that there are houses on both sides of the road?

Mr. Barnes: No, I would not say that I have power to define what is a built-up area. Nevertheless, there are exceptions to the rule.

Mr. H. Hynd: Will my right hon. Friend nevertheless leave as much discretion as possible to local authorities?

Mr. Barnes: Certainly.

London Passenger Executive (Lost Property)

Mr. Keeling: asked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware that a regulation made by his predecessor in 1933 makes no provision for property found on a London Transport vehicle or station and handed to an official to be returned to the finder if unclaimed; and whether, in view of the nationalisation of London Transport, he will alter the regulation so as to assimilate it with the rule of the Metropolitan Police that unclaimed property shall be returned to the finder.

Mr. Barnes: These regulations relate to property accidentally left in any vehicle or premises belonging to the London Transport Executive as successors of the London Passenger Transport Board. On the point referred to they are on similar lines to those which apply generally to public service vehicles and to railways, and I see no reason to alter them in the manner suggested.

Mr. Keeling: Does the Minister not realise that the public do not appreciate these subtle distinctions between nationalised transport and nationalised police? He has not really answered the question why there should be a difference. Would he take a little more time than I have allowed him in order to look into the matter?

Mr. Barnes: It is not merely a question of nationalised transport. If the hon. Gentleman looks at my reply he will see that it applies to all public service vehicles.

Mr. Shepherd: Why does the right hon. Gentleman say that it refers to railways

when he ought to know that for property lost on the railways the existing regulations allow no reward at all to the finder, and that anyone who loses anything on the nationalised railways is, therefore, very unlikely to get it back?

Mr. Barnes: I was dealing not with the reward but with the return of the property to the finder.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Does the right hon. Gentleman mean to say that if the name and address of the owner are clearly ascertainable no steps are taken to get in touch with him?

Mr. Barnes: No, that is not the point. The question is whether the property should be returned to the finder if the owner is not found.

Safety Regulations

Lieut.-Commander Baldock: asked the Minister of Transport when regulations requiring bicycles to be fitted with red reflectors and white mudguards are to be restored.

Mr. Barnes: I am unable to forecast when it will be practicable to make the order bringing this requirement into force. At present, manufacturers are not in a position to meet the demand which it would create without detriment to their export and other essential commitments.

Lieut.-Commander Baldock: Does the Minister not agree that the restoration of this simple and relatively inexpensive device would greatly add to the safety of bicyclists at night, as their rear lights are frequently missing or otherwise ineffective?

Mr. Barnes: Yes, I am inclined to agree with that. The hon. and gallant Gentleman should look at the further note to my reply.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft: Since the question of red reflectors and white rear mudguards is about the only aspect of transport policy for which the right hon. Gentleman accepts responsibility, will he leave no stone unturned and no avenue unexplored in order to reach a satisfactory conclusion of the matter?

Mr. Barnes: That appears to me to be typical of the usual ineffective interventions of the hon. Gentleman.

Sir Herbert Williams: Is not one of the troubles the right hon. Gentleman is suffering from that he has just lost his chief "red reflector"?

Lieut.-Commander Baldock: asked the Minister of Transport when regulations are to be introduced requiring motor vehicles subject to speed limit to be fitted with rear reflectors.

Mr. Barnes: A requirement that motor vehicles should carry one or more reflectors in addition to a rear light could be imposed only by new legislation, and I cannot say at present if or when such legislation will be introduced.

Lieut.-Commander Baldock: Did the Minister not inform the House some years ago that a committee was examining this question? Have they come to any conclusion yet?

Mr. Barnes: No more than I have just stated.

Stopping Places Advisory Committee

Mr. Vaughan-Morgan: asked the Minister of Transport the powers of the Stopping Places Advisory Committee; who are the members; and what is the statutory authority for its existence.

Mr. Barnes: The Stopping Places Advisory Committee is appointed informally by the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee constituted under Section 1 of the London Traffic Act, 1924. It is composed of representatives of the licensing authority, the police, London Transport, the Transport and General Workers' Union and my Ministry. Its main function is to advise on the provision and siting of stopping places for the trams and buses of London Transport in the special area as defined in the London Passenger Transport Act, 1933. I will circulate the names of the present members in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Vaughan-Morgan: Is the Minister aware that when it was recently desired to move a bus stop in Reigate a matter of 100 yards or so, his Ministry convened a meeting of this committee on the spot, involving the attendance of seven officials from London plus three local officials? Is not this matter best left to local authorities to deal with?

Mr. Barnes: I am not aware of the circumstances of each case, but it is of great advantage to have a small expert committee of this kind to advise on the multitudinous arrangements for stopping places.

Mr. Vaughan-Morgan: Does that mean that every time a bus stop is moved anywhere in the very large London Transport area, 10 officials have to come together to settle the matter?

Mr. Mellish: How does this committee work if a local authority wants to alter a bus stop? When one writes to the London Passenger Transport Board one is told that it is not convenient and cannot be done. How does this Committee function? Where does it start from?

Mr. Barnes: That is the type of conundrum that I should have to look at separately.

Following are the members:

Chief Superintendent S. G. Wells, M.B.E. (Chairman), Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis; Mr. J. T. Barrett, J.P., Transport and General Workers' Union; Superintendent J. W. Goyder, Commissioner of Police, City of London; Mr. L. J. Wallis, Licensing Authority for Public Service Vehicles for the Metropolitan Traffic Area; Mr. A. C. Kain, A.M.Inst.C.E., Minister of Transport; Mr. G. P. Stuart Clark, M.Inst.T., and Mr. R., N. Turnbull, London Transport Executive.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF SUPPLY

Machine Tools

Mr. Walter Fletcher: asked the Minister of Supply if he will ensure that the machine tools being imported into this country for our re-armament programme are adequately supplied with spare parts; and if he will ensure that these tools are delivered as quickly as possible.

The Minister of Supply (Mr. G. R. Strauss): Yes, Sir.

Mr. Fletcher: Can the Minister give an absolutely categorical assurance that there have been no instances where machine tools have arrived slightly damaged and without the necessary spare parts, so that there has been some loss of time in getting to work?

Mr. Strauss: I am not aware of any such instance.

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Supply whether arrangements are in


hand for creating strategic reserves of high-speed steel and tungsten-carbide engineers' cutting tools for use in connection with machine tools under the defence programme; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: No, Sir. The normal arrangements of the industry are such as to provide a reasonably effective reserve.

Mr. Nabarro: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the maximum utilisation of our available machine tool capacity and the extension of shift working in the engineering industry for the defence programme depend entirely on adequate supplies of high-speed steel and tungsten-carbide engineers' small tools, and in view of our experience in the last war, even as late as 1944, would it not be propitious to expand this capacity and install reserves?

Mr. Strauss: I agree with the first part of that question. This matter has been discussed with the industry. They are satisfied that they are able to provide a reasonably effective reserve.

Mr. Watkinson: Will the right hon. Gentleman deal with the other end of the problem, which is that unless the makers of cutters and other machine tools are supplied with the right type of steel from the nationalised steel industry they cannot make the tools? Will he give an assurance that they will receive those supplies?

Mr. Strauss: That is rather a different question.

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Supply whether arrangements are now completed to secure adequate machine tool capacity of all descriptions to meet the requirements of that part of the defence programme scheduled for completion during the year ending April, 1952; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: Machine tool capacity will be adequate to meet that part of the defence programme scheduled for completion by April, 1952.

Mr. Nabarro: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the new machine tools which are at present being installed in British engineering factories will be to the detriment of our essential export

trade, or will the export trade continue unabated and will those tools sent overseas be replaced by American and other imported machine tools?

Mr. Strauss: That is rather a broad question to answer in a single sentence. If brief, we are maintaining, and hope to be able to maintain, our export trade. Most of it goes either to Commonwealth countries or to countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. We are anxious not to cut down any of the exports to these countries.

Mr. Nabarro: In view of the right hon. Gentleman's statement at Crayford last Friday evening on the subject of importing European machine tools, can he tell us what he is doing to prevent German machine tools going East, behind the Iron Curtain, instead of westwards to this country?

Mr. Strauss: That is a rather different question. We are buying all the machine tools we can in Western Germany.

Mr. Watkinson: asked the Minister of Supply to what extent the American machine tools required for the re-armament programme have been secured; and if the delivery position is satisfactory.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: Priority ratings have already been granted for the majority of the orders for machine tools placed in the United States, and it is hoped that discussions now proceeding with the United States Government will result in satisfactory deliveries of all the American machine tools needed for the defence programme.

Mr. Watkinson: Will the right hon. Gentleman add to that reply and at least say that at the moment the programme of American machine tool procurement is going to plan and that there are no unforeseen hitches which may result in the machine tools on order not reaching us when we expect them?

Mr. Strauss: Yes, Sir.

Aircraft Ejector Seats

Mr. P. B. Lucas: asked the Minister of Supply (1) whether the Hawker P.1081 experimental aircraft in which Squadron Leader Trevor Wade lost his life was equipped with a Martin-Baker ejection seat, or what make of seat was fitted;
(2) whether the Martin-Baker ejection seat will in future become a standard fitment in all single-seat, high-speed experimental aircraft; and whether he will issue instructions for all such existing aircraft at present equipped with ejection seats of another make to be modified at once to take those of Martin-Baker design.

Mr. Geoffrey Cooper: asked the Minister of Supply what type of ejector pilot seat was used by the pilot when the Hawker P.1081 aircraft exploded and killed the pilot.

Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton: asked the Minister of Supply what type of ejection seat was used in the Hawker P.1081 experimental aircraft in which Squadron Leader Trevor Wade lost his life; whether this type of seat is standard equipment in Service aircraft; and how many live drops have been completed with this type of seat.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: The experimental Hawker P.1081 aircraft was fitted with an ejector seat made by M.L. Aviation Ltd., and preliminary indications are that the seat functioned properly. Two makes of ejector seat, this and the one made by Martin-Baker Ltd., have been approved for use in Service aircraft and it would be undesirable to have a monopoly of either of them. Live test ejections from aircraft are not called for by my Department and I am not aware of any having been made with the M.L. seat. I cannot accept the statement in Question No. 15 that the aircraft exploded.

Mr. Lucas: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that the same measure of safety is afforded by the M.L. seat as is afforded by the Martin-Baker seat, in view of the fact that no live drops have been effected by the M.L. seat?

Mr. Strauss: No live drop is called for before the device is accepted. I have no reason at the moment to doubt that the M.L. ejector is as good as the other one.

Mr. Cooper: Has my right hon. Friend any evidence to show that the seat which, as I understand it, was fitted in this aircraft, which had not proved itself by a live drop, has been given any preference by the officials of his Department either for ordering or for development, compared with the seat which has proved itself with a live drop?

Mr. Strauss: They have both been approved and considered by the technicians concerned to be reliable, and preliminary investigations have shown that on this occasion the seat did function properly. No preference is given to this ejector compared with the other one. Some seats are fitted with this and some with the other.

Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton: Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree, as a matter of principle, that in experimental flying, safety devices such as ejection seats shall be of the very best? Is it not a case that this seat, through which Squadron Leader Wade lost his life, had not had a live drop made from it?

Mr. Strauss: That is quite true. I am advised that there is no need to have a live drop. There were dummy drops. I am advised that this is a very technical matter, but there was no need to have a live drop to prove to the satisfaction of my Department that this seat was good, and there is no reason at the moment to doubt that it was good.

Air Commodore Harvey: In view of the high fatality rate among civilian test pilots, will the right hon. Gentleman go into this, matter in rather more detail and have proper tests carried out on both seats to establish which is the better, so as to give the test pilots the best equipment available?

Mr. Strauss: The advice given to me was that both seats are equally good.

Surgeon Lieut.-Commander Bennett: Could the right hon. Gentleman say whether any emergency exits have been successfully made by means of this type of seat?

Mr. Strauss: I have said that no live drops were made with this type of seat.

Test Pilots (Insurance)

Mr. Lucas: asked the Minister of Supply what arrangements are made for the insurance of the lives of his Department's test pilots; in what sums are such lives insured; and upon whom rests the responsibility for the payment of premiums.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: Test pilots employed by my Department are covered by the National Insurance Industrial Injuries


scheme. Payments under this scheme may be supplemented by awards made by the Treasury under the Civil Service Injury Warrants, which make special provision for flying accidents.

Mr. Lucas: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that these meagre provisions are really satisfactory, in view of the hazardous nature of the flying that these test pilots daily undertake?

Mr. Strauss: That is a difficult question to answer. A claim has been put forward for increased pay by these pilots, which is now being considered by the Treasury and my Department.

Malayan Tin Industry (Supplies)

Mr. Watkinson: asked the Minister of Supply if he will take steps to expedite the supplies of steel plate and castings necessary to maintain the plant and equipment of the Malayan tin industry.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: I am making inquiries about the particular orders involved to see what help can be given.

Mr. Watkinson: This state of affairs has been in existence for a long time. Can the Minister tell the House whether something can be done, as the rate of conversion to dollars of steel supplied to the Malayan tin industry is probably the highest rate of conversion of any use to which steel can be applied?

Mr. Strauss: I am not aware of that and I am seeing if anything can be done.

Zinc Scrap (Prices)

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: asked the Minister of Supply whether he has agreed a maximum price for zinc scrap with representatives of the zinc users; on what date the agreement was made and from what date it had effect; and what the price agreed was.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: Maximum prices of zinc scrap have been fixed by Statutory Instruments. Prior consultation with the trade interest concerned took place through the Ministry's Scrap Advisory Committee, on which the zinc users are represented. The current prices are set out in the Non-Ferrous Metals Prices (No. 3) Order, 1951.

Mr. Powell: Has the Minister received any evidence that these maximum prices

have been infringed? If I show him an alleged case of infraction will he look into it?

Mr. Strauss: I certainly will.

Steel Production (Raw Materials)

Mr. Jack Jones: asked the Minister of Supply if he is now able to make a statement on the prospects for steel production and supplies in the current year.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: As the answer is rather long I will with your permission, Mr. Speaker, read it at the end of Questions.

Raw Materials

Brigadier Clarke: asked the Minister of Supply what difficulty he anticipates in obtaining the necessary raw materials for the armament programme; and what action he is taking to overcome them.

Mr. Charles Ian Orr-Ewing: asked the Minister of Supply what arrangements he is making to ensure that the necessary materials, particularly steel and non-ferrous metals, are made available to manufacturers engaged in important rearmament projects.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: The re-armament programme will make increasing demands on the supplies of raw materials available for all purposes. Action is being taken to increase supplies wherever possible, to promote economies in use and to eliminate use for less essential purposes. A solution of the difficulties is also being sought through international discussion.

Brigadier Clarke: Does the Minister share the view on raw materials and rearmament expressed recently in the "Tribune," in which he is a nominee shareholder?

Mr. W. Fletcher: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied with the progress of international meetings about raw materials?

Mr. Strauss: They are still proceeding, but I should like to have seen a conclusion reached much earlier. We are still hopeful that the outcome will be successful.

Pick-axes (Packing)

Mr. Powell: asked the Minister of Supply why his form of contract for the manufacture of pick-axes for the War


Office specifies that they shall be protected with corrugated paper and tied in two layers of unproofed hessian.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: This packing is used to prevent damage to other stores with which the pick-axes are subsequently packed when they are despatched from War Office stores, but in view of the present shortage of materials I am considering whether this specification can be relaxed.

Surplus Stores (Sale, Ruddington)

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Supply if he is aware of the concern at the recent sale of Government surplus stores at a public auction at Ruddington, Nottinghamshire, when new equipment which could be used by the Services was sold for £103,500 allowing substantial profits to dealers; and what were the principal items auctioned.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: No, Sir. I would refer my hon. Friend to the statement I made in reply to Questions on 29th January last. The stores, which were practically all second-hand or obsolete, were mainly well-used items of contractors plant and second-hand clothing.

Mr. Dodds: Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that there is a good deal of disquiet about some of these sales of stores? Would he give more careful attention to this matter?

Mr. Strauss: I can assure my hon. Friend that a great deal of attention has been given to this problem, and that no stores have been sold which have not been checked and counter-checked by all the Service Departments to make sure that they are no use to them now and not likely to be of use to them in the future.

Mr. Nabarro: Can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that his answer to that supplementary question applies particularly to the disposal of machine tools, many of which are of great use to sub-contractors?

Mr. Strauss: Yes, Sir.

Tungsten Ore

Mr. David Eccles: asked the Minister of Supply what steps he has taken in the last 12 months to acquire the British- owned supplies of tungsten ore which have been available.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: The acquisition of tungsten ore, whether British-owned or not, for current consumption, has been the responsibility of private enterprise, but in recent months my Department have also bought.

Mr. Eccles: How can the right hon. Gentleman square that answer with the fact that over the last 12 months more tungsten ore has gone to Sweden and Germany from Burma than has come to this country? If he was buying through private channels how is it that the men concerned have not paid the equivalent of the price got from the Swedes and Germans?

Mr. Strauss: I do not know to what mines the hon. Member refers.

Mr. Eccles: Consolidated Tin Mines of Burma shipped double the amount of tungsten ore to Sweden and Germany that came to this country in the last 12months. How can the right hon. Gentleman therefore say that he has done his best to get a better supply to this country?

Mr. Strauss: As I said, the import of these ores is in the hands of private enterprise—a state of affairs the hon. Gentleman likes. They have the responsibility for buying all the ores which are available and which they think it is right to buy, but recently, since the Korean war, my Department have tried to buy, and we have succeeded in buying, various parcels which private enterprise did not want.

Mr. Erroll: Could the Minister say how much he paid?

Mr. Strauss: Yes, Sir, but I would rather not, because we do not want to disclose the stocks we hold.

Mr. W. Fletcher: Was there a limit on the price which the Minister advised should be paid?

Mr. Strauss: Yes, we do not buy regardless of price.

Mr. Eccles: The Minister has contradicted the statement he made as recently as 20th April, when he said:
Purchase and import are entirely in private hands. But that does not mean that the Government are not buyers through existing channels."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th April, 1951; Vol. 486, c. 2171.]
If the Government are buying through existing channels, why have they not bought?

Mr. Strauss: I have just said that they have bought.

Mr. Eccles: asked the Minister of Supply what British-owned stocks of tungsten ore are available in Burma; and what steps he is taking to acquire these stocks through private channels.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: I am not aware of any available British-owned stocks of tungsten ore in Burma. I understand that there are some stocks in that part of Burma which is under Karen control, but that they cannot be brought out at present.

Mr. Eccles: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I am not referring to the stocks under Karen control, but to the 50 tons of tungsten ore that have been available in the last three weeks, belonging to the Consolidated Tin Mines of Burma, and for which not a single bid has come from this country?

Mr. Strauss: I will find out through the private importers, whose duty it is to buy ore, why they have not bought this ore.

Mr. W. Fletcher: On what grounds does the right hon. Gentleman say that the ore cannot be brought out? Has he made any effort?

Mr. Strauss: Yes, Sir. I am advised that there may be small quantities of ore at this mine, which is isolated, that there is no labour available, and that for physical reasons it is, therefore, impossible to get hold of it.

Mr. Mellish: If private enterprise are not doing the job, would it not be better to sack them and put in somebody who will do it?

Mr. Eccles: Did the right hon. Gentleman's first answer mean that he was relying entirely on private enterprise to tell him whether or not there is a supply of metals available? If that is so, how can he say that he is responsible for steel hardening alloys when he does not know the facts himself?

Mr. Strauss: I did not say I was responsible. The import of many of these alloying elements is the responsibility of private enterprise. They keep us advised of what they are doing and about parcels, which are available but which they do not want

to buy themselves. They have not advised us of this particular parcel and I will make inquiries immediately.

Iron and Steel Scrap (Prices)

Mr. Geoffrey Hutchinson: asked the Minister of Supply whether, in view of the recent increase in railway freight charges, it is proposed to increase the amount allowed to accredited iron and steel scrap merchants under the Iron and Steel Scrap Control Order.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: Under the Iron and Steel Scrap (No. 2) Order, 1951, the controlled maximum prices for iron and steel scrap were increased from 21st April to cover the recent increase in railway freight charges.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL INSURANCE

Pneumoconiosis

Dr. Barnett Stress: asked the Minister of National Insurance how many applications have been received by the pneumoconiosis panels to the nearest available date since the Industrial Injuries Act was implemented; how many of the men examined were assessed as suffering from loss of faculty; how many were assessed at 5 per cent. or less; and if she can also give the figures for North Staffordshire.

The Minister of National Insurance (Dr. Edith Summerskill): I am having the available information extracted and will send it to my hon. Friend.

Dr. Stross: While thanking my right hon. Friend for the trouble she is taking, may I refer her to the last part of the Question and ask whether she is aware that in some cases men who are assessed at 5 per cent. or less may deem it advisable to leave the industry in which they are exposed to this danger? In such cases does she not feel that they should be allowed hardship allowances?

Dr. Summerskill: I will consider that point.

Mr. Leather: asked the Minister of National Insurance if, in view of the conclusions of the Pneumoconiosis Research Unit now published by the Medical Re search Council (Memorandum No. 25) which prove that the 5-year limitation


in awarding compensation to pneumoconiosis sufferers is unjust, she will now take steps to abolish this injustice.

Dr. Summerskill: I do not think that the Report to which the hon. Member refers throws any fresh light on questions connected with the 5-year limit. But I am, in fact, considering those questions in consultation with the T.U.C.

Mr. Leather: Is the right hon. Lady aware that on page 2 of this Report, which I presume she has seen, it says plainly that this condition is nearly always progressive, independent of continued dust exposure, which I consider to be appropriate medical evidence? Secondly, is she aware that I was assured by the Parliamentary Secretary as long ago as 2nd February that she was discussing this matter? Can she say when these discussions will come to a satisfactory conclusion?

Dr. Summerskill: The evidence the hon. Member has just quoted was known to the medical profession many years ago. It may be new to the hon. Member, but it is not new to the medical profession. I would remind the hon. Member, who has put down many Questions on this subject, that the representatives of the miners are very anxious to try to arrive at a solution of this problem. I met a deputation last week, and I propose to meet a deputation on Wednesday. I think the hon. Member will agree that it will be most satisfactory to the sufferers to have their own representatives discuss this matter.

Mr. Leather: I happen to be one of the representatives of these men, some of whom are in my constituency. As to what the right hon. Lady has said about the medical profession, I have always given her Ministry credit for the fact that until two years ago the doctors were not agreed?

Dr. Summerskill: The hon. Member is quite right in that he represents a number of miners in his constituency. If he likes to come to my Department to discuss this matter with me, I shall be glad to see him at any time.

Sir H. Williams: Since these facts have been known to the medical profession for some years, why is it that the Medical

Research Council has only just published them?

Dr. Summerskill: Facts are known about all sorts of things, but they are not necessarily reported in that form.

Shift Workers (Benefit Claims)

Sir Ian Fraser: asked the Minister of National Insurance if she will amend the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act so as to ensure that no workman misses a day's compensation owing to the fact that he is on a shift which starts before and ends after midnight.

Dr. Summerskill: The effect on a claim to injury benefit by a night shift worker of the rules for determining what constitutes a day of incapacity varies with the circumstances of the case. I hope to find a solution of the difficulties, but legislation would be needed to alter the rules.

Sir I. Fraser: Has not the Minister power to remedy this obvious defect?

Dr. Summerskill: I am quite prepared to amend the regulations, but the statutory authorities must administer them as they stand at present.

Sir I. Fraser: Would it not be a simple matter to bring in a new regulation?

Dr. Summerskill: I will consider that.

Pensioners (Assistance)

Mr. Watkinson: asked the Minister of National Insurance what concession will be made to those pensioners who are now in receipt of payments from the National Assistance Board, but who will in due course have the amount of the increased pension deducted from their grant.

Sir I. Fraser: asked the Minister of National Insurance if she will give an assurance that where an old person, including the blind, receives an increase of retirement pension under the Budget proposals, this increase will not be adversely affected by a decreased supplementary allowance from the National Assistance Board.

Dr. Summerskill: I would refer the hon. Members to the statement I made about National Assistance on the Second Reading of the National Insurance Bill on 26th April.

Mr. Watkinson: Is the right hon. Lady aware that that statement did not take us very far? In view of the great anxiety felt by pensioners in this category, will she not give an assurance that she will try to make a statement at the earliest possible moment, so that they shall know where they stand?

Dr. Summerskill: If the hon. Member reads my speech, he will agree that I have said all that I can say in view of the fact that I am awaiting a proposal from the National Assistance Board?

Sir I. Fraser: Is it not true that the right hon. Lady has considerable influence, including, of course, influence with the Treasury—the influence of the purse—over the actions of the National Assistance Board? Will she make sure that no old or blind people will fail to get a rise owing to the taking away with the one hand of the benefit which has been given with the other?

Dr. Summerskill: I thought I made it clear on Second Reading that that would be the case.

Mr. Gibson: Does my right hon. Friend expect to get an early report from the National Assistance Board on this question?

Dr. Summerskill: I hope so.

Poster

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Minister of National Insurance how many copies of the poster entitled, "Moving Home," have been ordered by her Department; how many have been distributed; and what is the cost to public funds.

Dr. Summerskill: The number is 150,000, all of which have been distributed. The cost was £533.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: While appreciating the necessity for a notice of this sort, may I ask the right hon. Lady if she is aware that this is a highly-elaborate printed poster, and that it is a little tactless at present to put out posters which tend to suggest that everyone has a home to go to?

Dr. Summerskill: I do not agree. I think that it is a most appropriate poster, and my only objection to it is that it is coloured blue.

Council Staff, West Ham (Benefit)

Mr. Arthur Lewis: asked the Minister of National Insurance if she is aware that unemployment insurance benefit has been refused to West Ham Borough Council workers who are rendered redundant and given their holiday pay, and that in consequence they are forced to have their holiday in the early part of the year instead of the normal summer period; and whether she will take the necessary action to remedy this.

Dr. Summerskill: The only case of this kind I can trace is that of a man who did not proceed with his claim when asked for further information. If my hon. Friend cares to send me details of any cases I will look into them. But the rules governing the treatment of holiday pay are of long-standing.

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMANY

Insurance Arrangements (Reciprocity)

Mr. Henry Hopkinson: asked the Minister of National Insurance when she expects that the negotiations now in progress with the Federal German Republic with the object of securing reciprocal national insurance arrangements with that country will be completed.

Dr. Summerskill: Agreement has already been reached on general principles and a legal instrument is being drafted. A number of detailed points are outstanding which it is intended to discuss at a further meeting this summer. Thereafter, I hope that an agreement can be concluded.

Mr. Hopkinson: Does the right hon. Lady realise that the present arrangements are working to the serious detriment of relatives of British personnel serving in Germany who visit their relations in the Forces? Will she do her utmost to expedite this matter before the summer to enable them to visit their relatives?

Dr. Summerskill: I am doing everything that I can. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that when one has bilateral discussions a lot depends upon the other side. If he will give me the details of any case, I will try to do what I can to help him.

Lord Russell of Liverpool

Mr. Marlowe: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will publish a summary of the evidence upon which it was decided to withdraw Lord Russell of Liverpool from his appointment in Germany.

The Minister of State (Mr. Younger): As my right hon. Friend stated in reply to the hon. Member for Brightside (Mr. R. Winterbottom) on 17th April, Lord Russell is to be withdrawn from Germany because it was felt that in consequence of the publicity already given to the case he may find himself, however much he may desire to avoid it, becoming a focus of political feeling in Germany, and it was considered wise to take account of this possibility. Lord Russell is not being withdrawn because of the original traffic incident, in regard to which the Lord Chancellor takes the view that it would be unfair to blame him.
There is no evidence to publish with regard to the withdrawal of Lord Russell because the whole matter was dealt with by the Lord Chancellor who subsequently had discussions with my right hon. Friend. I may add that the High Commissioner and Lord Russell have agreed between themselves that the incident should be regarded as closed and I would commend this conclusion to the hon. and learned Member as eminently sensible.

Mr. Marlowe: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that there is grave apprehension among other British officials in Germany that their task will be made much harder if they do not have behind them the backing of the British Government? Does he realise that we do not get the respect and co-operation of the German people by showing weakness?

Mr. John Hynd: Is not my hon. Friend aware that incidents of this kind may give rise, rightly or wrongly, through misapprehension, to a feeling that British representatives are not behaving properly in the occupied territories—I have particularly in mind Austria—that this can only be removed by such direct action as has been taken in this case, and that this will receive the approval of the more responsible members of the occupation authorities?

Mr. Younger: I do not want to add to the trouble which has been caused by this incident, but I repudiate any suggestion that this is a case of the Government not standing by officials. I said in my answer that the Lord Chancellor took the view that it would be unfair to blame Lord Russell for the incident; it was not the incident but the publicity and the inevitable results of the publicity which had to be taken into account.

Oral Answers to Questions — FUEL AND POWER

Electricity (Independent Generating Plant)

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power what is the policy of His Majesty's Government with regard to the encouragement of industrial undertakings to install generating equipment which is independent of mains electricity supplies; and what steps he is taking to arrange for the removal of impediments and restrictions imposed by the electricity supply authorities, upon the installation of such independent electrical generating equipment.

The Minister of Fuel and Power (Mr. Philip Noel-Baker): With the hon. Member's permission, I will answer this Question at the end of Questions.

Household Supplies

Mr. Harrison: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power if he will now say what steps he has taken to secure extra supplies of household coal for next winter.

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: Yes, Sir, I have arranged that during the six summer months the National Coal Board shall supply to the house coal merchants enough coal to enable them to sell 350,000 tons more than last summer to their customers for current needs and for the provision of private stocks. In addition, the merchants will have supplied to them enough coal to build up their own stocks at the end of October to 2½ million tons, that is, to half a million tons more than they had at that time last year. I have assurances from the merchants that, if the coal is made available to them, they will dispose of it in this way.

Mr. Harrison: Does my right hon. Friend recognise that his reply will give great satisfaction throughout the country


and is also a recognition that a shortage of domestic coal can cause as much hardship as even a shortage of industrial coal?

Captain John Crowder: Does the right hon. Gentleman's reply mean that there is to be a reduction of prices during the summer months?

Mr. Noel-Baker: That is another question.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Can my right hon. Friend say what provision is being made for those householders who have no storage facilities, many of whom live in flats and bungalows?

Mr. Noel-Baker: Last winter, the merchants undertook to ensure that such people should get supplies of coal, and I believe that these assurances were carried out throughout the winter.

Mr. David Renton: The right hon. Gentleman has not referred to supplies of coke which many householders require. Will he say whether the arrangements for coal cover the coke situation as well, or will he give a separate assurance that coke will be available?

Mr. Noel-Baker: This is a Question about coal. If the hon. Gentleman will put down a Question about coke, I will answer it.

Mr. James Glanville: Will the Minister remind the House, and particularly hon. Gentlemen opposite, that the miners have got their three million tons extra?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I hope to have the exact figures tonight.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what the increased figures which he has given mean in terms of extra allowance to the average consumer?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I would like to have notice of that question. It will be a total increase in the household coal market of, I hope, 800,000 tons, or perhaps a little more.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: What does that mean?

Mr. Noel-Baker: The supplies last year were about 30 million tons. It is 800,000 tons compared with that.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: When my right hon. Friend publishes the figures, will he note that the Scottish miners have produced the greatest amount of the coal?

Priority Needs

Mr. Hugh Fraser: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he will take urgent steps to see that sufficient coal is delivered to merchants to enable them to meet the priority needs of permits issued to invalids and the aged; and whether he is aware that in many districts, including the Stafford area, these permits are still not being met by coal merchants, owing to decreased deliveries.

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: As I have said in answer to earlier Questions, priority needs are given a first claim on household-coal supplies. The current supplies to Stafford, as to other areas, are being well maintained, and I am advised by the local fuel overseers in the Stafford area that they know of no case in which a priority need has not been met. If, however, the hon. Member will let me have particulars of any case of hardship which he has in mind, I will cause inquiries to be made.

Mr. Fraser: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these cases are often met only after weeks of delay? The local fuel overseers are paid servants and their order is not accepted and has to be passed to the regional department in Birmingham. As a result, that means weeks of delay. The coal merchants are informed that they must draw on their stocks but they have no stocks. Is the Minister aware that the effect of the proposed increase of 800,000 tons will not in any way meet the shortage of coal to the average-consumer?

Mr. Noel-Baker: No, Sir. Throughout the winter months the merchants meet 70 to 80 per cent. of all their customers orders from current supplies. There are, therefore, always ample supplies to meet priority needs, and I am assured by reports from all regions that priority needs are, in fact, being met.

Oral Answers to Questions — KASHMIR DISPUTE

Mr. J. Langford-Holt: asked the Prime Minister what fresh instructions he proposes to give to our representative on


the Security Council with a view to bringing about a settlement of the Kashmir dispute.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): As the hon. Member will be aware, the Security Council adopted a resolution concerning the Kashmir dispute on 30th March. The question of fresh instructions to our representative on the Security Council does not therefore arise at this stage.

Mr. Langford-Holt: Would the right hon. Gentleman consider again making a special offer to bring to an end this deplorable situation, in which two members of the Commonwealth of Nations are in conflict with each other?

The Prime Minister: We have made every effort, and the matter is now before the Security Council on a resolution put forward on behalf of His Majesty's Government.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL INSURANCE FUND (PARLIAMENTARY QUESTIONS)

Sir John Mellor: asked the Prime Minister to which Minister Questions concerning investments of the National Insurance Fund should be addressed.

The Prime Minister: To my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Oral Answers to Questions — DEFENCE PROGRAMME

Mr. Eccles: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the competing claims within the defence programme and between the defence programme and the requirements of civilian production, he will set up a Ministry of Economic Co ordination responsible for the supply of raw materials, machine tools and kindred common services.

The Prime Minister: The hon. Member will have seen the announcement which has been made about the responsibilities to be undertaken with regard to raw materials by my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal. Economic co-ordination within the field of Government planning generally is, of course, the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I am

satisfied that this and the other points mentioned in the hon. Member's Question, will be adequately dealt with under existing arrangements and those announced.

Mr. Eccles: May I ask the Prime Minister two questions: Will not machine tools and castings have to be included in the field of action of the Lord Privy Seal if he has to iron out the competition between the Departments; and, second, will the Lord Privy Seal be responsible only for the procurement of raw materials or will he also be required to screen the demands of the supply Departments for raw materials?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal will be dealing with the acquisition of raw materials, but the allocation is done by another piece of machinery.

Mr. Duncan Sandys: Would the right hon. Gentleman say whether the decision to set up a new Department to deal with raw materials was taken before the resignation of the three Ministers on this issue?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. A considerable time before.

Mr. Blackburn: asked the Prime Minister whether the speech of the Foreign Secretary on 25th April on the question of the allocation of raw materials to the defence programme represents the policy of His Majesty's Government.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Blackburn: While in no way disagreeing with the policy that cuts should not be permitted to affect the defence programme, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he would agree that any cut in our standard of living would, in a sense, be a victory for Stalin in the cold war? Will he, therefore, at the earliest possible moment say what action the Government are taking and what action the workers of this country can take to prevent a cut in our standard of living?

The Prime Minister: That opens up a matter which might form the subject of a debate——

Sir H. Williams: Or an election.

The Prime Minister: —and can hardly be dealt with in a Parliamentary reply.

Oral Answers to Questions — WAR MATERIALS (EXPORT TO CHINA)

Mr. Blackburn: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will press in the United Nations for an embargo on all exports by member States of strategic materials to China or Northern Korea.

Mr. Younger: The General Assembly Resolution of 1st February provided for the establishment of a Good Offices Committee as well as an Additional Measures Committee. I cannot make any statement at this stage on the type of measures referred to by the hon. Member which might prejudice the work of either Committee or prejudge the issues.

Mr. Blackburn: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that since the start of the war in Korea this country has been supplying raw materials for war purposes to the Chinese who have been killing our soldiers and are killing our soldiers today? Is not that a most dishonourable practice for the hon. Gentleman's Government to put into effect? What action will immediately be taken to stop the supply to the Chinese of any raw materials which can be used for war?

Mr. Younger: I do not accept the statement made by the hon. Gentleman. A good many answers have been given and there have been debates on the subject of our policy and the control of raw materials. I am satisfied that now, as a result of the controls which we operate, no strategic raw materials of any significance go to the areas which have been mentioned.

Mr. Blackburn: The hon. Gentleman used the words "raw materials of any significance." Surely he should give an undertaking that no strategic raw materials, whatever the view may be of their significance, should be given to the Chinese while our boys are fighting against them in Korea.

Mr. Gammans: Does the hon. Gentleman's answer mean that there is no difference whatever between the policy adopted by this country regarding the supply of raw materials to China and that now being followed by the United States?

Mr. Younger: That is a different question. That is not the Question on the Order Paper, but I can say that in

the sub-committee of the Additional Measures Committee, which has so far been going into the matter, there have been no substantial differences between us. We have been in constant discussion on the matter.

Oral Answers to Questions — JAPAN

British Representative

Mr. William Teeling: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the acting head of the United Kingdom Mission in Tokyo is receiving the same allowances and salary as was paid to Sir Alvary Gascoigne; and whether the embassy in Tokyo and its entertaining facilities are completely at his disposal.

Mr. Younger: The answer to the first part of the Question is "No, Sir." The Chargé d'Affaires receives his own emoluments together with an allowance to meet the additional entertaining expenses. The Embassy is at the disposal of the Chargé d'Affaires for entertaining purposes.

Mr. Teeling: Will the right hon. Gentleman make that quite clear? Does that mean that our representative is allowed sufficient money to hold receptions and to entertain as necessary on the same lines as the representatives of other countries who hold the same rank, as Sir Alvary Gascoigne did?

Mr. Younger: Yes, Sir. As far as I know, there has been no suggestion from our representative that the present arrangement curtails his activities in this respect. Of course, if we had indications of that kind we should review the situation.

Peace Treaty

Mr. Teeling: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what alterations he proposes to make in the British proposals on the draft treaty for peace with Japan in view of the recent Pacific Defence Agreement proposals, announced by the United States of America, and because of Australia's announcement that she no longer wishes to make reservations concerning the American draft peace treaty.

Mr. Younger: The answer is "None, Sir." His Majesty's Government were aware of the discussions for a Pacific defence arrangement and took them into account in putting forward their proposals for a draft treaty of peace with Japan. As regards the second part of the Question, I am not aware that the Government of Australia has stated that it no longer wishes to make reservations concerning the American draft peace treaty with Japan.

Mr. Teeling: Is it not true that the representative of Australia in Japan at present is reported publicly to have stated that there is now no need in any way to disagree with the United States arrangements and that the British suggestions for a peace treaty were—I believe these were his words—"not sufficiently realistic"? Are we to understand that Great Britain will be the only country left insisting on Peking being brought into the peace treaty?

Mr. Younger: I do not think I have any information, other than a Press report, of what the Australian representative is alleged to have said. All I said in my reply was that I am not aware that—even in the Press statement the hon. Gentleman was describing—the Australian Government no longer wishes to make any reservations concerning the draft peace treaty.

Mr. Eden: What is the position now about the draft treaty proposals? Shall we have an opportunity of knowing what we shall be committed to before we are committed to it?

Mr. Younger: Yes, Sir. I am answering a Question in a moment on this matter. I hope it will be possible to make a statement quite soon.

Mr. Nigel Fisher: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can now give further information as to the progress there has been towards a peace treaty with Japan; as to what discussions are now taking place; and when a definite statement can be made.

Mr. Younger: Two working drafts of the peace treaty with Japan are now under discussion in Washington. The first was prepared by the U.S. Government and the second by His Majesty's Government. It is hoped that these discussions will lead to a considerable

measure of agreement. Consultation is taking place between His Majesty's Government and Commonwealth Governments and preliminary comments on our draft have already been received from the Governments of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These are now being studied. It has not yet been decided whether a peace conference will be held. I hope to be in a position to make a fuller statement on the subject in a week or two.

Mr. Eden: Would the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that these peace discussions are causing more than ordinary interest, and will the Government consider how they can best act so that the House may have an opportunity to express its views and, I trust, its agreement with whatever the Government are trying to do?

Mr. Younger: If the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting a debate, that is not a matter for me, but I entirely agree with his general sentiments.

Mr. Fisher: Can the hon. Gentleman say when these discussions are likely to lead to finality?

Mr. Younger: If by finality is meant the signing of a treaty, I could not give any estimate. I said I hoped that they would have gone far enough to enable the Government to make a statement in a week or two.

Air Commodore Harvey: In these discussions will the hon. Gentleman reserve the right to include the question of compensation to Far East ex-prisoners-of-war?

Mr. Younger: I think I answered a question on that just recently.

Oral Answers to Questions — IRAQ (JEWISH MINORITY)

Mr. Lionel Heald: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the Government of Iraq has recently enacted legislation discriminating against Jews, contrary to that Government's international obligations; whether he will cause immediate representations to be made, urging the rescision of laws Nos. 5 and 12 of 1951; and whether His Majesty's Government will, if necessary, take steps to secure the reference


of the matter to the International Court of Justice in accordance with Article 37 of the Statute of 1945.

Mr. Younger: I would refer the hon. and learned Member to the reply which I gave on 23rd April to Questions put by my hon. Friends the Members for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Lang) and Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester. North-West (Sir A. Ungoed-Thomas).

Mr. Heald: In view of the statement contained in those answers, to the effect that there was some doubt as to the obligations of the Iraq Government, has the hon. Gentleman reconsidered that matter in accordance with the request made to him and in the light of the legal considerations which have been put before him?

Mr. Younger: Yes, Sir. This is a very complicated legal matter which I can hardly answer satisfactorily in reply to a Question. I would only say that a working party's report was issued from the United Nations which took the view that there was doubt about the continuing legal validity of the old declaration, at least to the extent that it was in suspense for the time being, unless the United Nations wished to take the matter up.

Mr. Janner: Has my hon. Friend directed his attention to Article 10 of the Declaration which was given as a solemn declaration by Iraq when she was relieved of the Mandate, in which she stated that the stipulations of that Declaration so far as they affected persons belonging to racial, religious or linguistic minorities were declared to constitute obligations of international concern? Is he aware that the Permanent Court of International Justice was the body to which it was agreed that any dispute concerning these matters had to be referred, and that that has now been accepted by the United Nations as an obligation?

Mr. Younger: It really is not possible to conduct a long legal argument at Question Time. I think that the hon. Members are perhaps underestimating the effect of the demise of the League and have overlooked the fact that the

United Nations does not automatically take on the obligations of the League.

Mr. Heald: Has the hon. Gentleman consulted the Law Officers of the Crown in this matter? If not, will he do so?

Mr. Younger: I am quite willing to consider the legal situation further, but I must say that from what I have seen the prospects are not very good.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: Is my hon. Friend aware that as a result of this discriminatory legislation, Jews are leaving Iraq at the rate of about 1,000 a week and are being absorbed in the State of Israel. Will he bear that in mind in our future relations with the State of Israel?

Oral Answers to Questions — SOUTH-EAST ASIA AND PACIFIC (DEFENCE)

Mr. Hopkinson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will initiate negotiations with the United States of America, France, Australia and New Zealand with a view to the conclusion of a defence pact analogous to the North Atlantic Treaty, open to all the peace-loving and democratic nations of South-East Asia and the Pacific.

Mr. Younger: No, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — STEEL PRODUCTION (RAW MATERIAL SUPPLIES)

Mr. G. R. Strauss: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will now answer Question No. 18.
The House will recall my warning on 7th February that the Iron and Steel Corporation, on taking over from the former private owners on 15th February, were likely to be faced with a raw material supply situation which would make it difficult or impossible to maintain the recent level of steel output. I have now received a report on the situation, drawn up by the Corporation at my request.
During the last quarter of 1950, the iron and steel industry reduced its stocks of imported iron ore by 327,000 tons, pig iron by 20,000 tons and scrap by 195,000 tons, which in total is equivalent to a steel ingot production of over 400,000 tons. This means that, of the 1950 output of 16.3 million tons, about 15.9 million tons were


produced from raw materials obtained during the year and over 400,000 tons by reduction of stocks.
Further reductions in stocks of imported iron ore, pig iron and scrap, equivalent to a steel ingot production of over 500,000 tons, were made by the industry in the first quarter of this year. During the last six months it has therefore used up about one million tons of its stock of steel-making raw materials. This source of supply will not be available to us for the rest of this year as stocks have now been reduced to a dangerously low level. Indeed, some furnaces have already had to be closed or damped down on this account
The intake of raw materials which, as distinct from the use of stocks, accounted for an output of about 15.9 million ingot tons in 1950, included an import of scrap, mainly from Germany, of over 1.9 million tons. The House will know that, although we are doing our best to obtain maximum supplies from Germany, there is no prospect of attaining anything like that figure this year. Against this we hope for some slight improvement in the import of iron ore which was reduced in the last six months by shipping difficulties; some small increase in the import of pig iron; some increase in the use of home ore which, however, because of its lower iron content, reduces output per blast furnace; and, most important, some increase in home scrap supplies. The success of the present national scrap drive is, therefore, of supreme importance and unsparing efforts must be made during the coming months to recover every possible ton.
These factors, however, even at best, can only offset part of the shortfall. In view of this and the exhaustion of reserve stocks on which we can draw, it is evident that steel production this year will be lower than last year. The greatest ingenuity on the part of manufacturers will be needed to overcome the shortage of steel. I am sure that all in industry will, in the national interest, do their utmost to ensure that, despite the difficulties, the maximum possible production is achieved.

Mr. Eden: The right hon. Gentleman told us that he thought iron ore supplies would now be improving. Am I right in thinking that the shipping difficulty has

mainly been the need to import American coal, which has made it impossible for our ships to bring the iron ore from North Africa?

Mr. Strauss: The answer to the first part of that question is: Yes, the shipping difficulty is getting easier. In reply to the second part, part of the difficulty was caused by shortage of shipping due to the large carriage of coal, only in part to this country and much more to other parts of the world—to Europe—and the large shipping of wheat to India. Those are the main causes of the shipping difficulty from which we suffered during the last six months. It would be fair to add that during the early period of the shipping difficulty, when freights were rising, the steel industry were unwilling to pay the higher freights and, when they came into the market, they found it difficult to get the shipping they required.

Mr. Clement Davies: May I put a rather general question to the right hon. Gentleman? As he realises, this is one of a number of statements made either by the right hon. Gentleman or by the President of the Board of Trade. On Friday, I asked the right hon. Gentleman whether the Government would issue as full a statement as possible on these shortages, what, in their estimation, they will be, what will be their effect not only upon the armament programme but upon industry, and what policy they propose to pursue with regard to the general distribution of steel, because this affects the whole country and not merely the munitions programme.

Mr. Strauss: I told the right hon. and learned Gentleman that I would consider his proposition with my colleagues. I have not had time to do so yet.

Mr. Bellenger: My right hon. Friend will be aware, of course, that steel production in Germany is rising and that a portion of the surplus over that permitted by the Tripartite Agreement is to be allocated for defence purposes. Does he anticipate that he will be able to obtain some of those supplies to help to overcome the shortage in British steel production?

Mr. Strauss: We would like to, but we cannot say at the moment whether that would be possible.

Mr. Jones: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the statement he has now made to the House will cause grave disquiet among steel operatives in the country? Will he make certain that the new Steel Corporation is making every effort to use to the full our own indigenous raw materials, our own iron ore and our own coal, to offset the imports of the vital materials which it now seems we shall not get?

Mr. Strauss: Yes, home ore will be used to the full but, as I explained in my statement, its iron content is much lower and does not make up for the lack of imported ore.

Mr. Eccles: What is the right hon. Gentleman doing to see that the coming into force of the Schuman Plan does not add to the difficulties of getting French North African ore and Continental scrap?

Mr. Strauss: The implications of the Schuman Plan are being carefully studied.

Mrs. Braddock: Is the Minister aware that there are hundreds of miles of tramlines throughout the country which are being buried owing to the change over from trams to buses, and that the reason is that local authorities cannot afford to pay for labour to take up these tramlines? Could that matter be looked at to see whether anything can be done?

Mr. Strauss: Yes, arrangements are being made between industry and a number of local authorities for the recovery of tramlines, and certain special financial arrangements are being made. I hope that the scheme will be extended.

Major Legge-Bourke: Is it the policy of His Majesty's Government that if an economy has to be made in total consumption this year, that economy will not be made from the re-armament programme?

Mr. Strauss: Yes, Sir.

Mr. John E. Haire: Can my right hon. Friend say what are the difficulties in obtaining sufficient supplies of scrap from Germany?

Mr. Strauss: There are difficulties partly because there is not as much scrap as there was last year, although in our view there is still ample scrap for substantial exports. Discussions have been and are taking place with the German authorities, but it appears at the moment that we shall not get anything like the amount of scrap which we want and which we think we ought to have.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: To what extent has Treasury policy delayed or prevented the acquisition of supplies of rich iron ore?

Mr. Strauss: I do not know what the hon. Member is referring to.

Mr. Gibson: Do the proposed arrangements for helping the recovery of tramlines apply in the London area, where many hundreds of miles of tramlines are now being covered up?

Mr. Strauss: I do not know, but I will look into it.

Mr. Alport: Has the Minister given any guidance to manufacturers as to the priorities for steel distribution, not only as between exports and re-armament but also within the sphere of re-armament and within the sphere of exports?

Mr. Strauss: That is rather a different question. I am dealing with the supply of steel, and not its distribution.

Mr. Chetwynd: Can my right hon. Friend say what production he hopes to obtain this year?

Mr. Strauss: It is too early to do so yet. All I can say is that there is bound to foe some fall, but we are hoping to minimise it.

Mr. Niall Macpherson: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us the prices being paid, respectively, for home scrap and German scrap?

Mr. Strauss: German scrap prices are much higher. The hon. Member will be aware that we have a firm control over home prices; it is as a result of that Government control that the price of iron and steel has been kept down during the last five years.

ELECTRICITY (INDEPENDENT GENERATING PLANT)

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: I will now make a statement in reply to the important matter which is dealt with in Question No. 42. The answer is as follows:
With respect, I think the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) is under a misapprehension. There are no impediments or restrictions upon the installation of independent electrical generating plant; any industrialist or farmer is free, if he so desires, to install his own supply, and many have done so. But some firms, which have made contracts to take their electricity from the public supply, desire also to install standby generating plant, as a safeguard against interruptions of supply. Many of the former contracts which were taken over by the B.E.A. prevented the use of this plant except during actual interruptions, since the provision of an electricity supply that is only partly or occasionally used is relatively uneconomic from the standpoint of the undertaking which provides it.
In pursuance of Government policy, however, the electricity supply industry agreed in 1947 to waive such conditions in their contracts, and they also reduced some of the charges which were due under their contracts.
In 1948, the British Electricity Authority and the area boards reviewed the matter, in consultation with the Federation of British Industries. As a result, the Authority and the boards decided to continue these concessions until 31st March, 1952. They have recently decided to continue them still further until 31st March, 1956. I hope that, in view of these concessions, industrial undertakings which have installed such standby plant may be willing to use it next winter, not only when power cuts occur or are expected, but regularly throughout the winter months.
Some industrial undertakings, by using waste steam for generating electricity, can achieve a higher overall fuel efficiency than the public electricity supply. His Majesty's Government are most anxious that any firm which can thus use waste steam for generating power should do so, if the savings it makes in fuel are enough to meet the cost. If a firm, by installing

such plant, can produce more power than it needs for its own work, the British Electricity Authority are prepared to buy the surplus for the grid. I hope that these arrangements may help in some degree to solve the problem of peak demand during the winter months.

Mr. Nabarro: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the specific restriction to which I refer in my Question is the time limit: 31st March, 1956? Is he aware that that date is only five years hence and that in the recent Budget proposals the initial Income Tax allowances for new plant installed have been withdrawn, which completely alters the whole position? Would the Minister undertake, in all these circumstances, to review this complicated matter once again with the British Electricity Authority with the purpose of completely removing the time limit, and thus inducing all industrialists to instal this standby plant?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I could not undertake to suggest removing the time limit altogether. When, in January, it was moved to 1956, it seemed to be a reasonably generous arrangement, but I have since discussed it with the B.E.A. and I am glad to tell the hon. Member that they are now about to have talks with a delegation of the Federation of British Industries on whether they can extend the concession further.

Mr. C. I. Orr-Ewing: Can the Minister deal with the second part of the Question, about initial allowances? Is not this running absolutely contrary to the stated policy of the Government, to which he has just referred?

Mr. Noel-Baker: That is a matter of Budget policy, on which I cannot answer. As the hon. Member knows, the allowances run for the rest of this year.

Sir H. Williams: May I ask the Minister whether the Minister of Works will instal a standby plant in this building, as it was without electricity this morning?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I am inquiring into the causes of the cut which occurred this morning.

Mr. Fisher: Has the export of this generating equipment, particularly to Soviet Russia, now ceased?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I do not think that any is being exported to Soviet Russia, but I should want notice of that question. Some is, of course, being exported; it is a most valuable form of exports and and helps our balance of trade results.

Sir I. Fraser: In view of the very important change of policy which the Minister has announced, can he give as long-term an assurance as any Government could give that where industrialists put down their own electricity plants, they can be sure of at least an equal right to fuel in emergencies as the public systems?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I think that most of the standby plants would either be run by waste steam, in which case no extra fuel is needed, or else by oil, which does not compete with national power stations.

Sir I. Fraser: Would they have an assurance at least of that?

Mr. Noel-Baker: Nobody can give an assurance about supplies of oil. Oil is provided by private companies, which operate all over the world, and the companies must make the best arrangements they can.

Mr. Nabarro: In view of the technical and complicated nature of this problem, would the Minister make specific reference to it in the speech which he will make shortly on the accounts of the British Electricity Authority? The

matter is of the widest interest to every industrial undertaking.

Mr. Noel-Baker: When I come to consider that speech, I will consider what the hon. Member says.

PERSIA (ANGLO-IRANIAN OIL COMPANY)

Mr. Eden: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any statement to make about the situation in Persia in respect to the Anglo-Iranian oilfields.

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I am in communication with His Majesty's Ambassador at Tehran about the latest developments in Persia. I regret that I am not yet in a position to make a statement on the subject, but I will hope to do so tomorrow.

Mr. Hopkinson: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether accord has now been reached with the American Government in regard to policy on Persia and whether we can count on the United States Government's support in any representation that may be made to the Persian Government about the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company?

Mr. Morrison: I do not think I should anticipate the statement which I hope to make tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — COAL INDUSTRY BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

3.50 p.m.

The Minister of Fuel and Power (Mr. Philip Noel-Baker): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
The Bill is required because in the Act of 1946, Parliament decided that the borrowing powers then granted to the National Coal Board should be limited in time and that after five years—that is now—they should be what Parliament might determine. The Act said, in Section 26, that to defray expenditure properly chargeable to capital account and to provide working capital, the Minister might make advances to the Board up to an aggregate total of £150 million. This power expires and the five years are up on 12th July, 1951. Parliament must, therefore, make a new decision on the sums which, in future, the Board can borrow for working capital and for its long-term capital investment plans.
The Government propose: First that the limit to the advances shall be raised from £150 million to £300 million; secondly, that the time limit on the advances shall be removed; thirdly, that the new limit of £300 million should be related to the amount of the advances outstanding at any one time, instead of to the aggregate advances irrespective of any repayments which may be made.
I will deal with the first and second of these changes in greater detail later. The third change, about the aggregate outstanding, brings the practice in regard to coal into line with what Parliament decided should be done in the later Acts which nationalised electricity and gas. It facilitates the banking arrangements between the Board and my Department and I hope, therefore, that it will commend itself to the House. These three changes in the Act of 1946 constitute the substance of Clause 1, subsections (1), (2), and (3) of the Bill.
The Bill makes another change in the provisions of the 1946 Act. Under the Act the Board was not permitted to borrow from the Minister for revenue purposes, but it had to have some power to meet a temporary deficiency in revenue.

By Section 27 of the Act it was empowered, with the consent of the Minister, temporarily to borrow, by way of overdraft from the banks or otherwise, up to a total outstanding at any time of £10 million. The Government now propose that that limit shall be raised to £20 million. That is the effect of subsection (4) of Clause 1.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: When the right hon. Gentleman spoke of banking arrangements between the Board and his Department, was he only referring to permission to increase the overdraft, or does that cover other provisions as well?

Mr. Noel-Baker: This is capital and working capital accounts; it is not the overdraft.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Does the right hon. Gentleman then mean that the sums coming out of the Consolidated Fund in the same way are subject to banking arrangements between himself and the Board?

Mr. Noel-Baker: No, Sir. Perhaps it will be more convenient if I answer these questions when I reply to the debate later on. The sums' which are advanced to the Board for capital investment or working capital come out of the Consolidated Fund. The sums which come from the Board are paid into an account at the Bank of England and are then made available to the Treasury. Anything over £100,000 standing to the account of the National Coal Board is available to the Treasury. Is that clear?

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: By way of repayment of previous loan?

Mr. Noel-Baker: No. I think it is quite straightforward and I think the right hon. Gentleman understands it.
Clause 2 of the Bill deals with a much smaller point which has arisen in the administration of the 1946 Act. The Clause provides for the adjustment of compensation to be paid to the former owners of the collieries in the Cannock Chase and South Staffordshire valuation districts. As the House will recall, the second stage of the compensation procedure under the Act was the division by the Central Valuation Board of the global compensation amongst the various districts. The calculations on which this


division was based were extremely complex and after the Central Valuation Board had made their award it was found that one of the factors required adjustment as a result of an error in the information my Ministry had supplied.

Mr. Brendan Bracken: Hear, hear.

Mr. Noel-Baker: It was a small error and it was a natural error which I can explain if the right hon. Gentleman requires. Clause 2 gives effect to this adjustment. The sum involved is relatively small. The new settlement rectifies what would have been an obvious injustice. It has been agreed to unanimously by all the parties, and I am sure hon. Members in all parts of the House will similarly agree. Therefore I hope Clause 2 will not delay us very long.
May I explain with equal brevity why subsection (4) of Clause 1 is required? That deals with short-term borrowing powers. The Act of 1946 requires that, taking one year with another, the National Coal Board shall pay its way. In other words, in some years it may have a trading deficit. Considered in relation to its annual turnover of £500 million, a limit on temporary borrowing of £10 million is very small. In fact, in its first year, 1947, the Board had a trading deficit of £20 million. It was able to carry on because it could put to temporary use large sums which had been reserved to meet liabilities for workmen's compensation and other things. But they cannot always count on having sums of that amount at their disposal. Therefore, I think it prudent to take the opportunity of raising the statutory limit on their temporary borrowing to a figure which is more realistic.
Because we have put in the figure of £20 million it does not mean that we anticipate a temporary deficit as large as that; we think it most unlikely that it will ever be as large again. But we cannot foresee the future and this power will be used only if required and can only be used by the consent of the Minister and with the control of the House. I think it a businesslike arrangement of which hon. Members in all parties will approve.
By far the most important part of what I hope will prove a non-controversial Bill relates to the advances the Minister may make to the National Coal Board for their

long-term capital investment and working capital. Why do we propose to remove the five-year time limit which the Act of 1946 imposed and raise the maximum amount which at any time may be outstanding up to £300 million? The ultimate answer to those questions lies in the Reid Report. As hon. Members all remember, the Reid Report was prepared for the Coalition Government in 1945 and was received with approbation by all parties and all sections of the Press.
It started from the basic proposition that coal mining is an extractive industry working exhaustible reserves; that coal is a wasting asset; that every 1,000 tons taken out of the ground makes it more costly and more difficult to get the next 1,000, and therefore that every decade it becomes harder and more expensive to get the same total amount of coal. Coal has been mined in Britain for 800 years. It has been mined intensively for the last century and a half. Scores of thousands of millions of tons have been taken from the ground. In consequence, as Sir Charles Reid said, we are in the third stage of British mining.
Until recently what the economists call the "real" price of coal—the price of coal in terms of other commodities—had risen in a constant trend, with only temporary fluctuations, for 70 years. In fact, as the National Coal Board said in the introduction to their National Plan, we have reached a point where, without a drastic programme of re-organisation and modernisation, the mines output would have fallen far below the low point of 1945 and the "real" price of coal would have gone on rising. The Reid Report explains why—I do not intend to go over it again—between the wars no such programme of re-organisation and of re-equipment was prapared. It shows that in 1945 such a programme was urgently necessary. It therefore recommended drastic and far-reaching technical changes in the whole lay-out of the mines, in mechanisation at the face, in the underground haulage systems, in the winding system and in the surface plant.
Its proposals included horizon mining—the driving of new level roadways 14 ft. by 10 ft. through the strata; the consequent introduction of underground locomotive haulage, with all the immense advantages of man-riding, cheaper


transport, saving of manpower and the elimination of accidents from runaway tubs or trains and so on. It included the greater use of conveyor belts for haulage to the main roadway and of up-to-date machines for cutting and loading coal; the introduction of skip winding, which brings more coal up the shaft in the same time for a less expenditure of power; and a great increase in washeries and other plants for mechanically cleaning coal.
The Reid Committee stated that they knew that the cost of these changes would be heavy; that some people would think, for example, that the driving of large, new, level roadways through stone would be prohibitively costly, but that, all the same, nothing but the best practice followed anywhere in the world, suitably adapted to British conditions, would suffice to meet our needs. They said that we must be ready to scrap ruthlessly any methods or machines which were inadequate for the task ahead. They said that as well as technical changes there must be changes in the whole organisation of the industry; and that we must merge the industry into units that could get the maximum advantages of planned production.
In other words, the Reid Report foreshadowed the National Plan which the Coal Board have prepared, and it laid down the lines of technical development on which the National Plan should be based. The Coal Board, therefore, began their task where the Reid Report left off. They say specifically in the introduction to the Plan, of which every hon. Member has received a copy, and which I regard as a splendid piece of work, that they have been able to accept most of its recommendations in the technical domain. Thus the Plan provides for the concentration of output through a smaller number of shafts, for horizon mining, locomotive haulage, power-loading, skip winding, mechanical cleaning and the rest.
The Board hope, if the Plan is carried out, to increase output to 240 million tons or more per annum by 1960 or 1965; and, other things being equal, to reduce the cost of the coal by 7s. per ton. But to do this they estimate that in the next 10 or 15 years they must invest about £635 million—£520 million of it in the

pits and £115 million on ancillaries—coke ovens, briquetting plants and the like. Of the £520 million for the pits, they think that about £350 million, two-thirds or so, would be required over the next 15 years simply to keep output where it is, without giving any increase.
They hope to finance a great part of this vast outlay from their depreciation funds. They have pursued a cautious policy over depreciation. Last year they set aside about 1s. 8d. per ton. It is calculated that that may be about twice as much as the owners of the colliery companies used to provide in the old days. As a result, a large proportion of the money used for new investment up to date has come from the Boards depreciation fund. So far they have invested in fixed capital assets £104 million. They have needed for working capital up to £40 million more. Towards this total, depreciation has furnished £75 million.
The Board had other funds at their disposal. They received £12 million which was paid by the Transport Commission for the railway wagons which the Coal Board sold. They had other large sums set aside to meet future liabilities, for example, workmen's compensation. Thus against the power to draw advances from the Minister of Fuel and Power up to £150 million in the first five years, the Board have so far taken only £41 million, of which £8 million has been repaid, leaving an outstanding sum of £33 million.
Hon. Members may ask why, in the light of this experience over five years, it should be necessary to increase the limit for long-term borrowing to £300 million and to remove the time limit of five years. The answer is simple. In 1946, Parliament provided for the Board's immediate needs, for the urgent rehabilitation which they had to do in the interim period while the National Plan was being prepared. The sum of £150 million, the provision made for the interim period, has proved to be ample enough. But the National Plan cannot be carried out in five-yearly packets. The Board must be able to make plans and to be certain of their borrowing for a longer period than that.
As the Reid report said, what is required will take many years to complete. In carrying out the Plan the


Board will not have in future the special funds which they have been able to use in their first five years. They will not have any more railway wagons which they can sell. They will have to replace the sums which were provided for workmen's compensation and temporarily invested in their business. So, even if they get from depreciation three-quarters of the total capital they need—of the £635 million which is forecast in the Plan—they would still need advances from the Minister of £160 million.
But they must also have working capital. When their liabilities mature, they must, as I have just stated, replace the sums needed for workmen's compensation. When this and similar factors are taken into account it is estimated that the National Plan could not be carried out without advances from the Minister of at least £235 million. To that total must be added, of course, the advances made since vesting date which are still outstanding—the £33 million to which I have already referred. That makes a total of £268 million. The House must also remember that the estimates of capital expenditure in the National Plan were all made on the basis of the price levels of 1949. Already the Board are paying much higher prices for the new materials and equipment which they have to purchase. I think that the House will see that it is only prudent now to set the limit for future long-term borrowing at £300 million.
Parliament will, of course, retain control over the advances which are made. The Minister of Fuel and Power and the Chancellor of the Exchequer must both give their consent, and at any moment the House can call them to account.

Mr. Bracken: Really this rhetorical statement that at any moment we can call them to account is surely nonsense. We cannot ask questions about this expenditure, and we only get an opportunity once a year of discussing the Coal Board's report, and then it is about seven months out of date.

Mr. Noel-Baker: If the Government were obviously doing something wrong in the matter of long-term lending to the Coal Board, I feel sure that the Opposition would ask for a debate, that debate would be granted and if the Minister was doing wrong he would have, in my Opinion, to resign. I cannot think——

Hon. Members: Would he resign?

Mr. Bracken: We offer that suggestion now.

Mr. Noel-Baker: I am assuming that the majority of the House made that strange decision.
For the reasons I have explained I hope that hon. Members in all parts of the House will agree that this Bill is now necessary and broadly right. Can they hope that as the National Plan matures, we shall get the coal we need at lower cost? The right hon. Gentleman may think I am adventurous in the extreme, but I believe that, on the experience up to date, they can. At a pit at Cwmtillery, in South Wales, the Board have mechanised the face, installed pneumatic stowing and developed electrically equipped conveyor faces. As a result the annual output of the pit rose from 100,000 tons in the first half of 1947 to 150,000 tons in the first half of 1950, an increase of 50 per cent. The output per man shift went up by 8.8 cwt. The costs, at the 1947 level of wages and prices, fell by 14s. 11d. a ton. At Radford, in the East Midlands, there was a change over from hand-getting to Longwall conveyor faces; the reorganisation of loading points and of boiler plant. The output increased by 180,000 tons from 90,000 to 270,000. The O.M.S. went up by 16.1 cwt. and costs, at the old level of 1947, went down by 4s. a ton.

Mr. Arthur Colegate: What are the previous figures relating to this? The Minister says it went up by 100,000 at Cwmtillery to 150,000. What was the date in mind?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I am sorry. I thought I had made it plain. It is from the first half of 1947 to the first half of 1950; in the three-year period. As a result of this investment made in those three years the output of coal at Cwmtillery increased.

Mr. Leslie Hale: I wish to put one question which I think will worry all of us. What is the order of priority in this matter? On what basis are allocations of steel to be made to the coal industry for these very important schemes? The Minister of Supply has assured the House that re-armament would have the complete first priority. In what order of priority are we to have—armaments, coals and housing?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I am confident that the requirements of coal will be regarded as a defence need. That is what I submit to my colleagues and what I hope will be agreed.
At Shireoaks in Yorkshire the workings were concentrated, and improved conveyors and coal cutters were installed. The output went up by nearly 70,000 tons over the three-year period, from 95,000 to 163,000. The O.M.S. went up by 8.5 cwt. and the costs at the 1947 level fell by 8s. 5d. a ton. In a selection of 60 pits, where the workings were re-organised, and new machinery and equipment were installed, the Board invested altogether £7½ million. As a result, in those three years, the annual output increased by six million tons. The average increase in O.M.S. was 7.5 cwt. The average reduction in costs at the old level of wages and prices was 6s. 8d. It is true that these 60 pits were all small or medium sized undertakings, where the results were likely to be quick and good. But they show what we may hope for when the larger and longer term schemes come through.
Taking their pits as a whole, the Board have increased the length of their conveyor belts from nine million feet at vesting date to 17.75 million feet in December, 1950—virtually double. They have increased the underground haulage locomotives from 90 at vesting date to 375 in December, 1950—and one locomotive may save the labour of 30 men. They have nearly doubled the quantity of coal won by power-loaders, from four million tons to 7.65 million. They have put in skip-winding at about a dozen major pits. Many thousands of yards of new level roadways have been completed and many more thousands of yards are still in hand. Of course there are also big new developments which are still in the experimental stage.
The Bolsover plan in what they call "continuous mining" is doing well. Those engaged in it assure me that already they have in some weeks raised the O.M.S. from 33 cwt. up to 50 cwt. When the power-loaders are installed, as they will be this year, they will raise it from 33 cwt. to over 80 cwt. One machine of the new all British type of cutter-loader, the Sampson Stripper—which I believe may come to be thought of as the Dakota of cutter-loaders, a big advance on previous——

Mr. Bracken: The Dakota is out of date.

Mr. Noel-Baker: It lasted for 15 years and is a magnificent machine. The Sampson Stripper in the few places where it is now in use is doing extremely well. At Clipston it is producing 840 tons a day with an O.M.S. at the face of over 12 tons. These things, and, indeed all the big developments of the plan, are still to come. So far we have had only the first advance instalments of what the Board intend to do. I think we can safely say that they have achieved some results. Mr. Bond President of the Midland Institute of Mining Engineers, said the other day:
We know full well that the pits are getting better, we have had less accidents and the output of coal is rising
He went on to say:
It is in fact very largely due to the immense capital sums that have been put into the pits in the last three years that we have been able to secure the present improvements, and certainly the output could never have been got, under the conditions obtaining, without it.
The output since 1946 has risen year by year and it is still rising. That has made it possible to meet the growing demands of industry for coal and power which result from full employment, and from the rising productivity of labour. Thanks to the investment of the Board since 1946 and to the efforts of the miners in the last four months, we have come through this winter without a single stoppage in the factories for want of coal; without any loss of industrial production and with much less personal inconvenience than at one time we feared.
It is, however, not enough to scrape through with narrow margins. As I have said so often, with the internal demand rising in the way it is, with the immensely increasing demand year by year by industry and production, we must have more coal; the need is urgent for industry, for the power stations and gas works, for the housewife and for the export market. To get coal we must have investment, re-organisation and re-equipment of the kind envisaged in the National Plan. We must press forward with this investment as quickly as it can possibly be done.
Our hopes of full employment, of buying food and raw materials from abroad, of building up our exports, of a rising standard of living for our people, and of adequate national defence all depend on


the policy which will be implemented by this short but vital Bill. As we press vigorously forward with this investment, we hope to make our mines, relative to their age and to their geological conditions, the safest, the most productive and with the best spirit of co-operation in the world. Thus it is true to say that the Bill enshrines the hopes of the British miners and of British industry, and our confidence in British greatness in future times.

4.21 p.m.

Mr. Brendan Bracken: It would perhaps be appropriate for us on this side of the House to offer a modified welcome to the new Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power. The Minister has told us that all in his party, like most persons on this side of the House, are strong supporters of the Reid Report upon which the great development plan is based. Most unfortunately, in a previous debate on the coal industry the new Parliamentary Secretary said that he did not accept the Reid Report as the bible for the industry. There are already divided counsels in this ill-conditioned Ministry of Fuel and Power.
We are also glad to see the Prime Minister back in the House today in improved health. Having served with him in the National Government, I know that he has a tough constitution which has not much suffered from the bedside manner or the healing voice of his former Minister of Health.
The Minister of Fuel and Power has told us that this Bill is short. If the Bill is short, his speech was not. There are about 300 or 400 words in the Bill, and there were about 3,000 or 4,000 words in the Minister's speech. The Bill strikes me as both short and mysterious. It reminds one of a prospectus issued at the time of the South Sea Bubble in which the promoter invited subscriptions for a company "for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but no one to know what it is."
I defy anyone, having listened to the acres of verbiage from the Minister this afternoon, to know really what he intends to do with this money. If it is intended to borrow extensively for the purpose of financing the National Plan, as the Minister calls it, then he should take notice of the cogent question put to him by his

hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. L. Hale). What priorities has he got at the moment to carry through his plan? I can tell him in advance, being a supporter of the plan but knowing something of the Ministry of Supply, that I do not believe that we shall see the National Plan carried through effectively for 15 or 20 years. It is the height of absurdity, therefore, for the Minister to come to the House and tell us that we must borrow quickly because the National Plan must be financed.
The fact of the matter is that the Government are just borrowing money, or giving the Coal Board power to borrow money. They have no policy about modernising old mines and very little about opening up new ones, as Sir Charles Reid suggested in his report. Why? Because, as the Minister knows, his Department does not get a high priority in steel and other necessities essential to the equipment of mines. It struck me as being strange that we should have to deal with this Bill this afternoon. I said that it was informative; but it is certainly not urgent, because neither the Minister nor the Coal Board could spend the amount of money mentioned in the Bill for many years to come. The Minister told us a great deal about certain aspects of the operations of the Coal Board. They are not mentioned in the Bill, but I do not complain of that. He said nothing about their financial policy.
We shall have other opportunities of discussing this Bill. There are a number of points that I should like to make, but they are more appropriate to the Committee stage, as indeed was most of the Minister's speech—if it was appropriate to any stage of any public discussion. But here I give him notice of a few points. The National Coal Board has a lot of property extraneous to its proper functions. It controls no fewer than 1,800 farms. It is, I should think, one of Britain's greatest landlords, if not the greatest. It has other similar, but surprising, interests, such as a cycle track, a milk round, and a cinema, to mention but a few.
I suggest that the Minister should speak to the Coal Board about the financial wisdom of realising some of its vast farm holdings rather than increasing its borrowing powers. I believe the Coal Board has so many responsibilities


resting on its shoulders that it cannot give any proper attention to the management of farms and other extraneous investments.

Mr. Oliver: It is giving attention to its farms.

Mr. Bracken: I have seen them. There are many people who have a high opinion of Lord Hyndley and his colleagues on the Coal Board, but I do not believe that most of those on the Board know the difference between a bull and a cow.

Mr. Murray: What is the difference?

Mr. Bracken: The hon. Member ought to be on the Coal Board: no doubt he will be.
This Bill is a mystery. It sets out to give the Government power to borrow extensively. The Minister's attempts to explain it to us were not very satisfactory. It is necessary, particularly for hon. Members opposite who have great knowledge of mining, to have an opportunity in Committee of going into this question. We are grateful in one sense for the Minister's statement about policy in relation to the Coal Board. We have never had an opportunity in this House for a full-dress discussion of the National Coal Plan, strange as it seems. We have had no chance whatever.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Such a debate has never been asked for, so far as I am aware.

Mr. Bracken: The Minister did not ask his colleagues if he could come to the House to announce the National Coal Plan and its financial consequences, though it is something which he says is most important in the life of the country. He did not ask his colleagues for an opportunity to bring this before Parliament. We would have welcomed such a debate. In my judgment Britain rose to greatness through coal and, through coal, Britain will return to prosperity. The Minister ought to be ashamed of himself for not bringing this matter before the House.

Mr. Noel-Baker: It was submitted to me only on Friday of last week.

Mr. Murray: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that people in the country—the men who matter—want to

consider this as well as the Minister, and that that is what is happening at the present time with the plan for coal?

Mr. Bracken: The hon. Gentleman refers to the men who matter in the country; I do not know who they are.

Mr. Murray: The miners.

Mr. Bracken: Different people have strong ideas about who are the men who matter. For instance, the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) has a very strong idea about men who matter. One of the men who matter is the Minister, who does not think it worth while to give us a proper picture of the plan for the national development of coal, except by means of a long and irrelevant disquisition on this meagre Bill. That is not the way in which the Government's National Plan should be explained to the House of Commons.

Mr. David Griffiths: Get on with the Bill.

Mr. Bracken: I am telling the right hon. Gentleman a few things which it is necessary for me to tell him, because party discipline on the other side of the House prevents any close criticism of Ministers at the present time.
I want to say a word or two about the financial aspects of this Bill. Years ago, when the pound was sound, statutory public utility companies had to present Bills to Parliament if they wished to raise further loans. That was an important matter, because it gave Parliament the power to control the expenditure of public money. What are we doing today? We are practically saying that the National Coal Board shall borrow up to £300 million and spend it more or less as they please. The Minister has told us that we can always keep a check on the Coal Board's doings either through himself or through the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That was an absurd statement. We have one solitary opportunity in the year of discussing the Report of the National Coal Board, which comes along nearly seven months out of date. We cannot ask Questions——

Mr. Leslie Hale: The party opposite have spent about six out of the last seven days criticising Ministers for planning, and saying that these were matters for the


experts; but surely the right hon. Gentleman would agree that the plans must be discussed with the National Coal Board, with the miners' representatives and with every interest in the country, in order to lay down in detail the complete picture for the Minister?

Mr. Bracken: The hon. Gentleman's interruption is unworthy of his acute legal mind. I am not saying anything about the planners, because I realise that I could not add anything to the vitriolic rhetoric of the late President of the Board of Trade or the late Minister of Labour. They have dealt with the planners in a way that seems to me to be quite appropriate to my point. We really have an opportunity only once a year of discussing the Coal Board's Report in this House, and it matters a great deal to hon. Gentlemen on the other side, because there are many aspects of the Coal Board's Report which deeply interest them, and there is practically no opportunity, save in one brief debate, of dealing with this vast industry.

Mr. Manuel: The right hon. Gentleman is now maintaining that there is only one day in the financial year on which we can discuss the coal industry or any aspect of it. Surely, in view of his responsibilities, he is aware that the Opposition have Supply Days and could choose any one of them to have this matter discussed?

Mr. Bracken: I hope that the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel), in the long period of compulsory retirement that awaits him, will study the Rules of the House. I also hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will realise that it is of the highest possible importance that we should have, not by the behest of the Opposition but by the act of the Government, a full opportunity of considering the annual reports of the nationalised industries. There is no party controversy between us on this matter; it is much otherwise. I think it is a great mistake to suggest that the Opposition should provide a Supply Day on which to discuss certain aspects of the Coal Board's Report. Hon. Members opposite will think that our sole purpose is to criticise the Government. That is worthy work, but we should like on occasion, as Members of this House, to become, to use the late Ramsay MacDonald's expression, a Council of

State. I personally feel that there will be no helping the coal industry until we can take it out of party politics; indeed, I do.

Mr. D. Griffiths: You have always interfered with it.

Mr. Bracken: That seems to me to be an absurd interjection. The hon. Gentleman does not realise that the coal industry is the second greatest of all British industries.

Mr. Griffiths: No, the greatest.

Mr. Bracken: I admire the hon. Gentleman's loyalty, but agriculture is the greatest, and the hon. Gentleman is wrong, as usual.
I hope we shall invent, at some time or other, a better system of discussing this great industry, because we certainly ought not to be very pleased with the performance of the Minister this afternoon. It was quite wrong to make an important statement on the coal industry based on this little borrowing Bill. I do not want to take up more time, because I told the Minister that this Bill must be closely scrutinised in Committee, and I promise the Minister that it will be closely scrutinised. I hope we shall have some help from hon. Gentlemen opposite in looking into it. Let me assure them that I strongly object to this method of raising large sums of public money. The Minister has shown us how great is the Government's contempt for Parliamentary control over public money.

Mr. James Glanville: The right hon. Gentleman gave it to the old coalowners.

Mr. Bracken: It is a scandal that immense sums of money are placed beyond the control of Parliament by a Bill like this, and I also say that, if the Minister had wished to produce a reasoned explanation of the National Plan, he should have put it in the Bill, and should not have used this opportunity—or rather misused it—in relation to this meagre Bill. However, I see that some hon. Gentlemen opposite are ready to get up, and I hope they are going to join with us in a very close examination of this Bill in Committee.

4.38 p.m.

Mr. John McKay: I am glad to have the opportunity of speaking


on this subject, which is one of great concern to the miners, but before dealing with the Bill, I should like to congratulate the new Parliamentary Secretary on his promotion and wish him every success.
It must be admitted that this Bill is one of great importance to the mining industry, but when we seek to help that industry by giving it greater opportunities for getting capital and securing loans, we must, of course, be satisfied that the industry can justify itself. Though this Bill is small, it seems to me that to a large extent it opens up the wider question whether the National Coal Board has really been a success. Are we justified in agreeing to this Bill? We may talk about capital and the lending of money, but anyone who has considered or studied the history of the mining industry will have come to the realisation that, in mining today, there is something else which is just as worthy and just as important as capital. One might say with confidence that what is just as important as capital to the mining industry is the new asset—the fact that the whole of the mineworkers and the managers are working in close cooperation.
If any proof were needed of the great value of that particular asset, we have only to look at the results achieved during the last six months. Those who have been in the industry for many years and have known its difficulties and trials, realise what a great need there has been to develop that new asset. If we go into the history of the loss of manpower and production through stoppages in the different industries of this country, we find that 60 per cent. of the stoppages were in the coalmining industry. Had it not been for this great new asset, we could never have got the extra three million tons of coal which were so necessary during the last few months.
I now come to the question of the need for the money which the Bill proposes to give to the industry. The Opposition have complained that there has been no opportunity to discuss the new plan; but it is well known to anyone who examines the subject that the right hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. Bracken), could, had he wished, have examined and discussed it today.

He did not do so. The new plan indicates the great need of more capital for the industry. The industry cannot stand still; it must be modernised. Everyone who has examined the plan knows perfectly well that it is based on the modernisation of the industry. It is proposed to reconstruct 250 of the 950 existing collieries. Surely that is modernisation. It is hoped that, when modernised, these 250 collieries will produce 70 per cent. of the future output.
The plan further proposes the starting up of 20 new collieries, and it is stated that 50 new drifts are to be begun. It is hoped that under this plan it will be possible to produce 20 per cent. more coal with 80,000 fewer workers. Surely, that is a sound planning prospect. But, in order to get on with this big job, the industry needs this further £150 million. A great cry has gone up from the benches opposite about the enormous cost of this plan; but we have to realise that the cost of materials has risen to three or four times what it was 10 years ago. Surely, that is a sound reason for giving the National Coal Board more capital so that it may work out its future salvation.
Let us consider the position before the National Coal Board took over the industry. The main criticism levelled at the industry by the Opposition has been that, although it has done this and that, it has not reached the pre-war output figure. That is perfectly true. But in my opinion the key to the economic success of the mining industry is the fact not only that we are getting more coal, but that we are getting more coal from the individual producers in the mines.
In order to make a fair comparison between the efficiency of the industry under private enterprise and under public ownership, we must consider past history. In 1926, there was the great national strike which resulted in longer hours for the miners and in tremendous reductions in their wage structure—two very large factors in the question of getting things produced cheaply. From 1926 right up to 1939 when the war broke out, private enterprise had every opportunity to develop the industry from an economic point of view.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew): The hon. Gentleman is going rather wide of the Bill

Mr. McKay: If I am a little out of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, my justification must be my desire to support to the full the new proposals for the industry. It must be admitted that if we were not quite satisfied that we were backing a winner, we would not invest capital and provide these facilities. I agree, as the Opposition repeatedly contend, that the efficiency of the coalmining industry must be tested on the basis of output per individual. When one examines the figures, one finds that the output in 1938 was 1.14 tons per man-shift. That was after several years of opportunity to develop the industry. In 1946, the last year before nationalisation, the output was down to 1.03 tons per man-shift.

Mr. Nabarro: Since the hon. Member is quoting output figures, will he quote the figures per man-year, which of course provide the most reliable statistical comparison?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: If the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. McKay) does so, he will be out of order.

Mr. McKay: I quite expected an interruption of that kind, but in the past miners did not have a week's holiday.

Mr. Nabarro: Is it in order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, for an hon. Member to discuss holidays with pay, which were the subject of legislation in 1938?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I do not think it is, but I do not think it is any more out of order than what the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) was trying to encourage the hon. Member for Walls-end to discuss.

Mr. McKay: When one is making a comparison based on the output per man-shift and there is an attempt to evade the issue by asking what was the output per year, one must take into consideration the various changes in circumstance which have taken place in the industry. Miners have more leisure and holidays now, and a comparison between the present time and the time when they did not have that leisure, would place them at a disadvantage. In spite of that, the output during the last six months taken consecutively has been, not 1.03 tons per man-shift, but 1.22 tons. These little decimal rises may seem little or nothing, but when they go on day after day in the case of each individual right through the year, they amount to a tremendous lot

in the end. The position now is that if we had the same number of men in the pits today as there were in 1938, with this increased output that has occurred for six months consecutively, we would have had 25 million more tons of coal produced. That is a factor with which the British people must reckon.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is not within this Bill.

Mr. McKay: It is often asked why output is not more than it is today when one considers the capital that has been invested in the industry in the last few years and the new machinery introduced into coalmining. Yet when one goes back to the position before nationalisation, what does one find with regard to machinery?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member must try to keep to the Bill. It is quite a simple Bill for the borrowing of money.

Mr. McKay: I am sorry; I shall finish in a moment, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I think one must compare one period with another. Between 1927 and 1939, mechanical cutters were introduced and the percentage of coal conveyed by mechanical means increased from 12 to 80 per cent., of the total coal produced. But the output per man shift only increased by 16 per cent. Under the National Coal Board in four years the output per man shift has increased by 18 per cent.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I should be very reluctant to ask the hon. Gentleman to resume his seat but he must keep to the Bill, please.

Mr. McKay: Apparently I am taking the matter too wide. A study of past history in the industry and a comparison of that with the present position will indicate to anyone that the National Coal Board has made a real success of its efforts to help the country and to organise and mechanise the industry. There should be no question at all about the attitude of the House towards this proposed increase in capital, if hon. Members study the matter without party feeling and compare results since the industry came under public ownership, with the results obtained by and the weaknesses existing in the industry when it was in private hands.
The necessity for greater capitalisation and modernisation and greater production will be seen. Whatever criticisms may


arise on the Committee stage of the Bill, I am sure there should be no question about what will be the effect of its provisions. The record of development since 1947 has been such that there can be no question of its economic success. From the point of view of the public well-being, and the economics of the industry and what I might call the spiritual quality that now exists in coalmining, one must agree that the industry has never been in such a position in all its long life. Although this is a small Bill and is limited in scope, I think it will give a fillip to the industry and create confidence in it.

4.58 p.m.

Colonel Clarke: I should like to follow the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. McKay) but he has made it a little difficult in some ways. However, I think we can agree on one thing. He spoke of the improvement in the spirit of service in the mines in the last few months. I think that is the case and it is a most important thing.
We are very much at the parting of the ways in the coal industry at the moment. In the next few months or years we shall see whether the industry recovers, whether it goes forward to the 240 million tons output referred to in the Board's plan or whether it goes back to 150 million. Many people think it will go back and that the importation of coal perhaps will become a permanent feature of our whole economy in this country. It is not only a matter of more machinery and capital. We are all glad that there has been an improvement in the last few months in the direction which the hon. Member for Wallsend indicated.
I should like to support the welcome my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. Bracken) gave to the new Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power. We have seen a number of Parliamentary Secretaries to that Ministry in our debates in the last five or six years. I think he will be glad to know that most of them have attained Cabinet rank quite quickly. Whether it is due to the stimulation of our active opposition or not I do not know.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Constant coal debates.

Colonel Clarke: Practice makes perfect. Certainly a record number have

ascended to the highest ranks on the Front Bench.
There is one matter on which the hon. Member for Wallsend touched to which I should like to refer; it was also spoken of by the Minister in his speech. I got the impression that the hon. Member for Wallsend was contrasting the amount of capital spent in the coal industry before the war with what has been spent recently. I should like to say a few words on that. It has often been referred to, with the result that people are rather apt to think that no capital at all was spent between the wars. But that is not so.

Mr. McKay: What I was saying was that during those 12 years, from 1927 to 1939, there had been an increase in mechanical methods of production, but that the output during those 12 years was increased only by 16 per cent., whereas the output per head per shift has increased by 18 per cent. in these last three or four years.

Colonel Clarke: I am still not quite certain that I am fully seized of the hon. Member's point. In that time there was spent on mechanisation—on conveyors and coal cutters and cleaning plant—£105 million, which of course in our currency today would be double that amount.

Mr. Leslie Hale: In what period?

Colonel Clarke: Between the wars. That, of course, does not take into account the money spent on new sinkings and the reconstruction of pits.

Mr. McKay: Despite the capital investments that took place, the output per man began to go down pretty rapidly, whereas in the present circumstances it has gone up all the time.

Colonel Clarke: The output per man-year before the war was higher than it is at present.

Mr. McKay: No, that is not correct.

Colonel Clarke: My right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East, and Christchurch (Mr. Bracken), who replied to the Minister, referred to certain extraneous property belonging to the National Coal Board which might well be sold and the proceeds devoted to capital reconstruction and capital development in other directions. I should very much like to support that suggestion. I well remember when the nationalisation Bill was going through, protesting at a


great number of assets which were transferred—for example, brick and tile works, pipe works, lime works and water works, all of which seemed to me to have very little to do with the primary duty of the National Coal Board, which is the winning of Coal.
According to the Report of the National Coal Board, some of those assets seem to be of a considerable size. Brick and tile work, for example, in 1949 made a profit of £266,000-odd. Presumably, that was a gross profit, and on a modest turnover of 10 per cent. that represents £2½ million capital. The assets of those brick and tile works could well be passed over to brick and tile manufacturers whose principal business is——

Mr. Leslie Hale: Perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman would forgive me intervening; I know he is reasonable in this matter. I should like to know whether he has been to the Leicestershire coalfields and seen where these brick and tile works are. Some of them are right at the pit head. They were built there by the manufacturers to save transport. They are completely inseparable from the coal workings. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman's suggestion were carried out, it would mean that three or four different works would have to be in operation, and this would result in confusion.

Colonel Clarke: I think the hon. Member is right. It could not be done in all cases, but there are a number of cases in which it could be done.
Let me now turn to my principal point in this connection, namely, the question of estates and farms. On page 174 of the last Report of the National Coal Board there is a short reference to them; actually there are three-and-a-half lines. One gets the impression that the National Coal Board do not think that estates and farms are of very much importance. I understand from another source that the National Coal Board own 60,000 acres-odd of agricultural land. I do not believe they hold it purely from an agricultural point of view. Much of it is waterlogged land due to subsidence, and in order to avoid troubles from tenant farmers and agriculturists generally it is better for them to hold on to it and charge lower rents instead of having to pump the water from the land in order to get over the trouble.
Reference has been made to some agricultural land which, according to the speaker, was well looked after. Actually it is derelict and waterlogged. I presume, being in the control of one Government Department, it cannot be interfered with by another Government Department and the county agricultural executive committees cannot call them to order and insist on the land being drained. At the same time, I admit that the rents obtained are quite good. They come out at about 30s. an acre. Working on that sort of basis, I estimate that this agricultural land must have a capital value of somewhere between £3 million and £4½ million according to whether one estimates it at £50 or £75 an acre.
I believe that land ought to be offered to the sitting tenants, and, failing that, the land should be sold by auction and the capital derived from it should be put into some form of capital enterprise which is much nearer to the real duty of the National Coal Board. I believe it would not only be better farmed and the country would get more food from it, but an extraneous and rather diverting side line of the National Coal Board would be removed and time would be saved. In addition, as I have said, from £3 million to £4½ million of capital would be found.
By and large, we on these benches support this Bill. We think there are many points which will have to be considered in Committee. There is one point about which I would like to ask a question. I understood from the Minister that £115 million is to be spent on ancillaries. I hope we may hear what those ancillaries are. In the Annual Report of the National Coal Board ancillaries cover all those assets of which I have been speaking, such as brick and tile works, agricultural land and so forth. I should like, however, to have a little more information because £115 million is a large sum.
The re-organisation is absolutely necessary and should be pressed on as quickly as possible. We know the difficulties of steel and labour, but I sometimes wonder whether some of the development work referred to in the "Plan for coal," I think under the heading "Tunnelling," could be done by outside contractors. Last year I spent some time examining the work which has to be done in the hydro-electric industry, where a great deal of tunnelling


was going on, and it occurred to me that some of the interference which takes place in the mines at present through men having to be taken off coal winning in order to do development work might be avoided, and development expedited, if it were done by contractors outside the coal industry altogether. I am not an expert in this, of course, and it may be that what I suggest is impossible, but the idea has been put to me and I should like to hear whether it is feasible.

Mr. Slater: When the hon. and gallant Gentleman talks about tunnelling, does he mean tunnelling dealing with drifts or tunnelling in deep mines, where people are responsible for making their own arrangements?

Colonel Clarke: I am talking about deep mining and the driving of roads. I used the word "tunnelling" because for some reason the paragraph relevant to it in the "Plan for coal" also refers to it as tunnelling. That is why I used the expression. I do not pretend to be a technical expert or a mining engineer, but I like to stick to the words used in the document.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I do not think there is anything in the Bill which relates to it.

Colonel Clarke: I will conclude with those remarks and I shall be grateful if at the end of the debate the Parliamentary Secretary will answer one or two of the points which I have put.

5.12 p.m.

Mr. Murray: I was very glad to hear the hon. and gallant Member for East Grinstead (Colonel Clarke) say that hon. Members opposite would support the Bill, even though they may have to criticise it in Committee, as is their right. When I came into the House, I was surprised to hear the right hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. Braken) giving his usual entertainment.

Mr. Leslie Hale: Why was my hon. Friend surprised?

Mr. Murray: I always enjoy listening to the right hon. Gentleman's speeches but, although I enjoy listening to them, I never feel very much enlightened after I have heard them. All I gathered from

his speech today was that this was a small Bill and a feeble Bill which was not even worthy of a serious speech from the right hon. Gentleman. He said he would provide us with plenty of criticisms when we reach the Committee stage. It would appear that the right hon. Gentleman is saving his wind for the Committee stage, although he seems to have a fair amount on these occasions. I suppose that when we reach the Committee stage, we shall be able to meet all these fine criticisms which we shall enjoy.
To my mind, this Bill is the answer to the question of the increased coal production which we in this country so much require. We had the sorry experience of seeing the numbers employed in the industry fall so far that the situation became dangerous, bearing in mind our need for coal production. I say, therefore, that even though this is a small Bill, it is not a feeble Bill but in fact is a great contribution towards the increased production we shall require to deal with the rearmament programme, about which we are all so anxious.
In my practical experience as a miner under private enterprise, I always found that there was a great shortage of capital in the mining industry—or, at least, that was what we were told. Many times in the mines—and my mining friends will conform this—we could not get the tub to the coalface because of the lack of a few lengths of iron plates. That was very bad economics on the part of private enterprise. It happened not only with iron plates but also with timber, for on many occasions there was a shortage of timber—and that affects the safety provisions in the industry.
We were also short of pumps. I have had to work in 18 inches of water simply because there was not a decent pump available to use to get the water out. Why was that? Because there was no money with which to buy the pumps. That was false economy, but it remains a fact that, time and again, we had to leave the face and were unable to produce the coal which was there because there was no pump with which to remove the water.

Mr. Nabarro: When was this?

Mr. Murray: Under private enterprise.

Mr. Nabarro: When?

Mr. Murray: Not much more than 11 years ago.

Mr. Nabarro: The hon. Gentleman says it was not more than 11 years ago. Did this take place in 1940? Was there a shortage of timber and pit props in 1940? If so, there was a very good reason—which was that the Baltic supplies of pit props were no longer available to us. The hon. Gentleman must be more careful in what he says.

Mr. Murray: I know that what I am saying is absolutely correct—never mind what the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) says about the shortage. There was a shortage not only of pit props, plates, timber and pumps, but also of engines. Where a small engine would have pulled out the coal, instead of our using five or six ponies, the engine could not be bought. We had five or six boys driving the ponies, so that the wages paid to the boys and the cost of the food for the ponies were an extra cost running against private enterprise. They told us there was not the capital with which to buy this equipment.
I did not intend to speak today, but the right hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch encouraged me to do so. He was so entertaining that I felt I could not resist the temptation. Everyone knows perfectly well that the nationalised industry is suffering today from the heritage it received from private enterprise. How many new shafts have been sunk during the last 25 years? [An HON. MEMBER: "The hon. Member for Kidderminster did not hear that."] He could not give me the answer, but I will repeat it for his benefit. How many new shafts have been sunk in the last 25 years?

Colonel Clarke: Colonel Clarke rose——

Mr. Murray: I was asking the hon. Member for Kidderminster.

Colonel Clarke: I think there are no figures which give the answer to the hon. Member's question, but I can tell him of four shafts. There was one by Baird and Company in Scotland, one in Durham by John Bowles, another in Shropshire and the Chislet shaft in Kent, which was almost entirely developed between the wars. One cannot get the figures, but there are four examples offhand, and we could probably think of more if we had time.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: But it would not be relevant to the Bill.

Mr. Murray: I am delighted with the hon. and gallant Gentleman's intervention, although you, Sir, indicate that we must not pursue the point, although I thought it came within the economic problem of the industry. We may not be certain of the number, but I know that there were very few pits sunk under private enterprise. We are, however, certain that hundreds of pits were closed because of the economic position, and that is the point I was making. It is that economic position, as the result of the lack of capital under private enterprise, which has placed the country in the present situation, and that is the heritage which the nationalised industry has received from private enterprise. That is the substance of my remarks today. If we could have had that capital invested for which we are now asked in the Bill which the right hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch, has ridiculed from every angle——

Mr. Bracken: I only said that the Bill was utterly uninformative. I might have added that the money which is now being asked for might, for all we know, not be invested in improvements in the coal industry, but in something like the Gambia egg scheme.

Mr. Murray: The right hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch, always entertains me, but never enlightens me, and no doubt all the miners in Bournemouth would back his statement.
I do not want to keep the House very long on this matter, but I felt that I wanted to say just one or two things. I must add how delighted we are in this House, especially the miners' group, to see our good friend the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Neal) appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power. We hope that he will have good health; we know that he has plenty of ability. We trust that the Opposition will realise that, too. We believe that he will have great joy in serving this Government in the position to which he has been called.

Mr. Bracken: It will not be for long.

Mr. Murray: In any case, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be helpful to him.
I want to conclude by saying that I am glad to have learned since the right hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch spoke, from the hon. and gallant Member for East Grinstead, that the Opposition will support the Bill, and that we shall get the Second Reading today. When we come to the Committee stage, if the Opposition can suggest improvements I am sure they will be welcomed by the Government. When the capital for which this Bill provides is invested, it will be for the benefit of the country at large and to secure the increased production which we all require. When we have done that, I hope that the right hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch will withdraw all that he has said today.

5.23 p.m.

Colonel Lancaster: If I do not follow closely the line taken in the speech of the hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Mr. Murray), it is because I do not want to be involved in a discussion of comparisons between pre-war and post-war conditions. I should like to join in the general congratulations that have been offered to the new Parliamentary Secretary. I have had some connection in the past with the part of the world which he now represents, and I feel that he will be a thoroughly good successor to that long line of Parliamentary Secretaries who have graced that position since vesting day.
I support the general purposes of the Bill. Undoubtedly, when we come to the Committee stage, it will be necessary to consider the financial implications in greater detail than we can on an occasion like this, when we can talk about the matter only in very general terms. The hon. Member for Durham, North-West, said what a pity it was that a great deal of money such as is now proposed had not been spent on the industry between the wars. That might be so, in a certain measure, but equally it might well have been money spent on things now becoming obsolete, in view of the greatly changed technique of mining during the last two decades. We have a great opportunity at this moment of spending money usefully in carrying forward some of the most modern developments in the industry.
I am mostly concerned whether the Minister was not a little too sanguine when he expressed himself as confident that he would get the material, particularly the steel, which he requires. During the latter part of the war, the industry was always in the mental condition of imagining that there was a high priority for coal and that there would be materials available to enable coal production to be maintained. In fact, that was not so, and there was a very real shortage of most of our requirements. I think, in line with a great deal of managerial thought at the moment, that it is a matter of concern whether steel for the necessary roof supports alone will be available in the near future, apart from the use of steel in matters of major reconstruction. Indeed, the wise course in regard to this plan for coal is to look at it as no more than a very general aspiration. If we take it as a specific matter, we may be landing ourselves in something in the nature of stagnation. During the 15 years which are envisaged as the first part of the plan, there will be considerable developments which may make obsolete some of the proposals in the plan.
I was looking at one of these major developments this weekend and talking to a young colliery manager. He said a very wise thing, which was that the plan was two years out-of-date on the day on which it appeared. It is no more than a summation of the areas' own contribution. It is not a national plan, but merely the result of separate areas in the country submitting their individual plans, which have been correlated—very effectively, I may say—at the national level. The plan in essence is not a national plan, but it is none the worse for that.
Therefore, I find myself in some difficulty—I am sure that my right hon. Friend finds himself in the same position—because at this moment we cannot criticise these financial commitments in great detail. We know that during the four or five years since the National Coal Board took over, something of the order of £150 million has been spent on capital account, but it is very difficult for us to decide whether that money has been spent effectively. I am sure that neither the output nor the O.M.S. could reflect such a large expenditure at this moment.
It is equally difficult to decide whether or not an additional sum of £150 million is required. At this moment, as the Minister very properly said, the costs of everything are rising to such a degree that it may very well be doubtful whether the sinking of a pit is advisable. In the old days we used to reckon something of the order of 25s. per ton of annual output for capital required in the sinking of a pit. I suppose that the figure is now in the neighbourhood of £5. A new sinking may require £4 million or £5 million capital expenditure alone, before any considerable underground development occurs. That is a very large capital on-cost to consider. That is one of the many reasons which make it difficult to criticise the amount that we have under review in any detail and certainly not at this stage of the Bill. When we get upstairs I hope that we shall hear a very great deal more on the matter than we heard from the Minister this afternoon, and that we shall have more facts on which to base our criticisms and decide our approach to this problem.
Having said that, I do not know that it is appropriate now to say a great deal more. As my right hon. Friend rightly said, we on this side do give our support to in the intentions behind this plan for coal, and to that extent, of course, we must see that the necessary finances are there to make it a practical proposition. How fast and to what extent those moneys should be spent is a matter which, I think, must come under constant review. We cannot give a blank cheque to the Government at this moment and say, "Go ahead. Do whatever you may think desirable." The whole matter must be balanced with our commitments in a great many other directions, and of course we must have constant proof from the Ministry itself that not only is the money being well spent but that we are getting value for it.
I think we should be unwise to put too much reliance on this three million extra tons we have been getting recently. We have not yet seen the bill for that. It is the result of Saturday morning working. I have never been very keen on that, and I am sure that the Minister knows full well that it is a very expensive way of obtaining additional coal. We do not want to see that going on a day longer than is really necessary. In fact, we shall

not, of course, see much of Saturday morning working until next October. We have seen the temporary end of it this week.
Beyond that, I have not a great deal to say. I hope that, as my right hon. Friend said, there will be put before us a good deal more detail to consider in Committee upstairs. I think that, although the Minister spoke for some little time today, he did not take us far into his confidence in this matter, and I do not think he has given us a great deal to go on, so that we for our part cannot say very much to him for him to reply to. All I would say is that by the time we go upstairs, I hope he will be ready to explain his position a little more precisely. It is a very considerable amount of money that is involved, but, on the whole, we on this side of the House are anxious to give support to this Bill.

5.32 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Hale: I am sorry if I have to make some slight criticism of my right hon. Friend. However, it will be on slightly different grounds from those of the right hon. Member for East Bournemouth and Christchurch (Mr. Bracken), who, I am glad to see, is not the only one who loves knockabout comedy. My hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North-West (Mr. Murray) has become one of his supporters, so that the list of his admirers has increased by one.
My criticism of my right hon. Friend is that he did not tell us enough, although he made a speech which I think everyone in the House enjoyed. I had hoped he would amplify the information available in the recent publication of the National Coal Board, which perhaps is not as widely read as it ought to be, and in which the details are perhaps a little more abstruse than they would be in a speech. I had hoped we should have put before the House figures showing just how much was going to new shafts, just how much was going to new developments, just how much was going to dealing with the older collieries, and so on.
I had hoped, too, that we should have what I think is very important, namely, a report on just how much has been done in the last four and a half years—how many shafts now have


first-class underground lighting, for instance. In some of the Warwickshire pits now we have first-class lighting similar—if I may say so, without seeming to exaggerate—to the lighting we have in this House. I had hoped we should have a report showing just how much transport has been provided and what new installations underground had been provided, and so on.
I know that it is not easy to produce statistics of all these highly complex factors, but I think the figures would have been instructive to the House, and I think the figures would have pleased the House, because there is no question about it that a very great deal has been done. Certainly, if a Conservative Member wished to go to any coal-mining area to repeat the sort of speeches that Conservatives were making at the time of the Coal Industry Nationalisation Bill, I should be very happy to provide him with facilities for doing so, because there is no question about it, that nationalisation in the coal-mining areas is a very great success.
I still look with concern at one or two points, and the first point I really am seriously concerned about—and I think the time has come when this should be said—is the point I raised in an intervention. What are the priorities in this matter? We have been told for many years that there were certain fundamental priorities for certain raw materials, and particularly for steel. There was an allocation for housing; there was an allocation for the essential reconstruction of electricity plants; there was an allocation for education; and there was an allocation for new factories in Development Areas, and for new factories generally, and so on. We have been told that these allocations were of fundamental importance in the planned economy of the country, and they played a very great part in the Economic Surveys from 1947 to 1950.
What is the position now? My right hon. Friend was present today when my right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply gave an answer to a question which I found startling. It was not a long answer. It consisted of the one word, "Yes." It arose out of a question put from the other side of the House arising out of a statement on the possible under-production

of steel in the ensuing 12 months. The question was, "Are armaments to be a first priority?" And the answer was the one word, "Yes."
If armaments are to be a first priority the question is: Is coal armaments? I know it is a material for making armaments. So is bread; so is meat; so is butter. So are all those things of life of every kind—fundamental things; and they are the materials for armaments. But is household coal, domestic coal? What guarantee is there about this? We cheered with profound delight a few months ago when the Colombo Plan was announced. That is a plan which will make demands on steel. It is fundamental to the question of armaments because of what is the real answer to Communism, and because of the really important question of providing some means of stopping the spread of Communism over distant areas of the world.
A temporary change in the Chair enabled me to say something I might otherwise have been unable to say. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I am referring merely to the pre-occupation of the Chair and not to particular personnel. I admit that there was a certain pre-occupation with other matters, but I am not for a moment suggesting anything else. I would be the last to do so.
I was trying to listen to the right hon. Gentleman give a lot of figures. There was a good deal of conversation going on in the House, so that it was extremely difficult to follow them. I noticed, at the time, an air of astonishment on some of the faces opposite, and it led me to assume that even hon. Gentlemen opposite had not, perhaps, completely and fully assimilated them. There was a figure which my right hon. Friend gave about a sum taken from the reserve for compensation, and put to another purpose, and I gathered at another stage that that sum had not yet been paid back.
I want to know a little about this. I want to know something about this account. The accounts of the Coal Board in one respect are the best accounts published anywhere. They deal with the production of coal, and the cost of coal at the pithead. Altogether, one gets far more information from them than one ever got from private enterprise in any way. But, finding the accounts a little difficult to understand, I should like to


be told at some time just how much has gone into compensation for loss of office, and I should like to be told where it has gone, too, and what has been done. My right hon. Friend's predecessor did say on one occasion that he contemplated publishing this information, but nothing so far as I know, has been done about that yet.
This matter is causing some irritation in the coal-mining areas, where it is said—I would not say so myself, but it is what many people say—that this action by the Ministry was a disagreeable thing. As it was done before my right hon. Friend's time, he will not take that criticism in any sense as applicable personally to him. But we do want to know. There are very ugly rumours about these figures of compensation and I think we are entitled to know the figures.
My right hon. Friend said that the allowance now made for depreciation overall, as I understand it, was of the order of 1s. 8d. a ton, which, he said, was twice the amount it gives to him. It is the old problem of 2a equals x—an insoluble equation unless we get some additional information. Quite frankly, I say that that is not good enough. If 2a is really twice what was allowed for pre-war, then the great increase in the price of coal has clearly made it a figure of which we need not boast or be proud. On the basis of 1s. 8d. a ton, it appears to give a total over-all depreciation figure of about £16 million, on the basis of 200 million tons a year. That does not seem to me to be a very great deal.
Here, I confess my ignorance at once. Probably I am asking something that has already been dealt with. How is this money to be paid back? I want it to be lent. I want more to be lent if necessary, because I think this is the finest way of spending money, and I am all in favour of it. But we really ought to have some information on how it is being financed, how it is being amortised, and on what basis. I think the House is entitled to know these things.
When my hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North-West, was speaking we had one of these pleasant interjections from the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro). I wish he could have seen conditions before the war. I wish he could have seen conditions in 1945, when miners were

crawling on their bellies through long winding passages two foot high to get two miles away from the bottom of the coal shaft in order to get the coal at the face. The fundamental economic implication of the sinking of new shafts is the old theory that, with the older mines, one has to get so far from the pit head to the coal face, that, because of the cost of transport and the number of miners on man haulage, it was a fundamental item in the cost of the pit.
The old theory used to be two men on the coal face to two men hauling, whereas it is now two men at the coal face to one man hauling. That is nobody's fault, not even the coal-owners. It is essential to get the coal first, gradually spread the ambit of operations, and then gradually reduce costs. That is a very hopeful aspect in sinking new shafts. In my early days I spent some time with injured lads of 15 who had been doing the work of pit ponies, going up and down the slopes, who had been crippled for life.
The hon. Member for Kidderminster asked a question of my hon. Friend about men who worked in water. It is a commonplace in that area.

Mr. Nabarro: The hon. Gentleman must not misrepresent what I said or exaggerate. I made a single point to his hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North-West, in connection with pit props. If I am fortunate enough to catch Mr. Speaker's eye I shall explain the point. That was the only point I made.

Mr. Hale: With respect, the hon. Gentleman is wrong in his recollection. That was the second point he made. The first question he asked was: "How long ago?"

Mr. Nabarro: I was trying to find out when.

Mr. Hale: The hon. Gentleman ought to know these things. When the question "How long ago?" is asked, the obvious inference is that it was some time ago and that my hon. Friend was introducing something a little unkind in mentioning it. This was a commonplace in some areas. I remember that in Leicestershire they were working pits which the experts said might flood and kill everybody in them, but they were being worked because they were cheaper to work. Men


worked in passages 1ft. 9 in. high, lying on their backs and slinging the coal back over their heads. Of course, in those days they worked only three days in the week, so they had three days' rest.

Mr. Nabarro: I asked two questions of the hon. Member's hon. Friend. The first was the year to which he was referring, and he replied that it was 1940. The second point was connected solely with pit props. Therefore, everything the hon. Gentleman is now saying about working conditions and water in the pits is quite irrelevant to what I said.

Mr. Hale: If the hon. Gentleman will read his speech he will find that he interjected when my hon. Friend was talking about water in the pits, and he asked how long ago it was. He got the quick answer, "Eleven years "; he worked it out and found that that was in the second year of the war instead of, as no doubt my hon. Friend intended to say, a year or two before the war. So far as I am concerned, I will give him my date, which is during the bad old days of the Tory Government in the years between the wars.

Mr. Nabarro: When was this?

Mr. Hale: From 1931 to 1935.

Mr. Nabarro: There was a Labour Government in 1931.

Mr. Hale: There was not. Then, colliery after colliery was being closed throughout the area, some of them never to re-open until nationalisation. That was the picture we had to face, and that was the picture the Coal Board had to take over. The Coal Board had to face this tremendous burden of re-organisation when nearly 20 years of wretched Tory Government had allowed the pits to decline, and when six years of war had made it impossible for even the most modest repairs and reconstruction to take place.

Colonel Lancaster: I hesitate to interrupt the flow of the hon. Gentleman's eloquence, but we must try to get this straight. He said that shafts needed to be sunk at this moment. I ask him to believe me when I say that the rate of shaft-sinking before the war was three times greater than it is now. If he

objects to men working in 1ft. 9 in. seams, is he suggesting they should cut into the roof, or what? Physical conditions very often make it necessary to work in low seams of coal. Is he really suggesting that conditions which existed under "Tory misrule" were different from conditions which now obtain, and that today we should not work narrow seams of coal, or that if we did work them, we should do so by some other method and, therefore, add materially to the cost? I should like to have the answers to those questions.

Mr. Hale: The hon. and gallant Gentleman, who left the coal industry a year or two ago, is apparently not abreast of recent developments, because he will find that in pit after pit where they used to work in narrow seams, they now have much wider seams, and that new seams have been opened up because that has been the policy. In the district about which I know something, in Warwickshire, that is the position, and that has been done. The hon. and gallant Gentleman then says that the number of shafts being sunk at the moment is not so great—I think he said it was one-third—as in some vague period before the war. What is the period he takes?

Colonel Lancaster: The average.

Mr. Hale: The average of the 20 years? It would be a fantastic figure, because the number of shafts sunk was certainly a comparatively small one.

Colonel Lancaster: I will take it at any given moment. I say that there are now only one-third the shafts being sunk that were being sunk at any given moment in the 20 years pre-war.

Mr. Blyton: Tell us how many pits have closed?

Colonel Lancaster: That has nothing to do with it.

Mr. Hale: I am sorry, but I am the only person who can permit interruptions at the moment, and I will close on this in one minute. Everybody knows that physical conditions have limited the possibility of opening new shafts. Everybody knows, too, that the Coal Board was left with a great deal of work that had to be done as a first priority. When the hon. and gallant Gentleman talks about these matters I pay great attention


to what he says, because. I remember that he spoke with considerable technical knowledge during the passage of the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act. I therefore hope he will not think me discourteous in saying that I should like to see those figures. I think they must be quite fantastic figures, because they probably work out at point something a year. There really were not many new shafts opened, although a great many were closed. I would counter with my figure and say, without having the figures to support it, that I think there were five times the number of shafts closed at any period before the war—except for those now closed to enable the same pits to be worked from other areas.
Subject to that, I join in welcoming this Bill. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us the fullest assurance that there will be no delay in going forward with these important schemes, which will make a great contribution not merely to life in the mining villages but to the economy of our country.

5.49 p.m.

Mr. Nabarro: I am very happy, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, to have caught your eye at this most propitious moment for it will enable me to reply in some measure of detail to a number of allegations made earlier by the hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Mr. Murray), who I am sorry is not at the moment in his place. Those allegations were, of course, the subject of comment by his hon. Friend the Member for Old-ham, West (Mr. L. Hale), who sought to support his argument. The hon. Member for Durham, North-West, was guilty of saying, as I understood him, that in the wicked days of Tory misrule prior to the nationalisation of the coal mines there were no safety devices whatever in the pits, and that that was responsible for a high incidence of accidents. He cited one example, the lack of pit props, and he attributed that to financial stringency before nationalisation.

Mr. Leslie Hale: I did not understand my hon. Friend to talk about the lack of necessary pit props. He was talking of support to the tubs to enable them to get to the coal face. He was not talking about pit props.

Mr. Nabarro: The hon. Member is quite mistaken, and if he refers to the

OFFICIAL REPORT tomorrow morning he will find a specific reference to pit props. The allegation made by the hon. Member for Durham, North-West was, of course, a direct reflection upon the ability and conscientiousness of His Majesty's inspectors of mines, who in those years were responsible for prevention and investigation of accidents. The hon. Member for Durham, North-West, is evidently not fully acquainted with the Coal Mines Act, 1911. I am very glad to see him returning to his place. I am responding at the moment to the point he made with regard to the absence of pit-props due to financial stringency. I am glad he is nodding his head, because he did refer to pit props.
I would ask the hon. Gentleman to look at the provisions of the Coal Mines Act, 1911, and refer particularly to Sections 49 and 50 and onwards. For brevity I would read only Section 49:
The roof and sides of every travelling road and working place shall be made secure, and a person shall not, unless appointed for the purpose of exploring or repairing, travel on, or work in any travelling road or working place which is not so made secure.
That is an adequate response to the hon. Gentleman's suggestion that there were no safety provisions in the pits before nationalisation.

Mr. Murray: The hon. Member must not say that. We who are practical miners know that there were, but under private enterprise they were in many instances ignored, and that is why we had to pay inspectors of our own to see that the safety measures were carried out.

Mr. Nabarro: I have no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Fuel and Power has a detailed knowledge of mining history and will be able to tell the House the year in which this House legislated for His Majesty's inspectors of mines to be appointed. It is quite certain that it is more than 100 years ago, and those inspectors of mines would very easily be capable of making good, or drawing attention to, any deficiency in safety arrangements.
However, that is all beside the point, compared with the provisions of this small Bill before the House today. It is essentially a financial measure, and I do not propose to go into the history of the coal mining industry during the last 250 years because so much has been said this


afternoon which is quite irrelevant. Every business in Britain today, in a greater or a lesser degree, is short of money and working capital. That arises from three definite and specific causes. The first cause is the incidence of taxation; the second is the very rapid rise in the cost of raw materials and operation in businesses and industries of all descriptions; and the third is the legitimate and urgent desire of many industries to expand and increase their sphere of operations and expand their productivity.
The National Coal Board is in the happy position of having trading losses forward for Income Tax purposes, and is not affected yet by the incidence of the high rate of Income Tax and Profits Tax. It is affected though, in very great measure, by the great increase in the cost of operations and the rise in the cost of raw materials. I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman what part of this £150 million of extra borrowing facilities which are being granted to the National Coal Board, is granted in respect of the rise in the cost of equipment and of operation in the pits, and what part of it is attributable to the expansion of activity in accordance with the Coal Plan, to which the Minister referred. He made reference only to a Coal Plan. I want a division of that £150 million, and to be told how much is attributable to the Coal Plan and how much is, in effect, an inflationary spiral affecting the re-equipment or additional equipment in the coal mines.
I think we might make some reference at this stage to research in this industry for, after all, this Bill means the specific provision of new capital and of working capital in the industry. Part of the research in the coalmining industry today is conducted by the Minister of Fuel and Power and part of it by the National Coal Board. If I have any comment to make upon the activities of either of these bodies—and from time to time I have considerable comment to make—it is that far too much attention and emphasis is devoted to the mining of coal in this country, in research circles and in this House, and far too little attention is devoted to how that coal is used.
The right hon. Gentleman will know that I have a long standing interest in this question and in the scientific problems

associated with the utilisation of coal. His Department and the National Coal Board maintain an advisory panel for informing industrialists, and others, how coal may be best employed for their particular undertakings. I believe—I say this with great deliberation to the right hon. Gentleman—that while his efforts have been well intended in this regard they are not nearly as effectual as they might be, because the general industrial public of Britain knows very little about the service that the Ministry and the Coal Board are providing in scientific matters affecting the utilisation of coal.
My second question, therefore, to the right hon. Gentleman, is whether any part of this money provided under this Bill, particularly in respect of working capital, is to be devoted to research, and will any part of that money be specifically earmarked for improving the advisory services for the utilisation of coal and other forms of solid fuel allied to it?
I should like to say a word on the question of mining timber, for here we are legislating for finance for additional equipment in the pits. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade has, of course, provided in this financial year for substantial sums of money for stockpiling raw materials. Are the Ministry of Fuel and Power and the National Coal Board laying in as stockpiles 10,000, 20,000 or even 50,000 standards of pit prop timber? In 1938–39 we made adequate provision in that regard, and quite properly so, for in 1940 the principal source of the supply of this timber, namely, Scandinavia and Russia, was denied us. Had it not been for that foresight exercised in 1938–39 a most difficult situation would have arisen in the early days of the last war. I should like to know if any of this extra capital provided is specifically for the purpose of laying in stockpiles of essential equipment and raw materials used in the mining industry.
Lastly, I turn to a specialised point and I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman for not giving him previous notice of what I am going to say. If he finds himself inconvenienced in responding I hope he will send me an answer through the medium of correspondence. He has conducted considerable experiments in the Midlands and elsewhere, upon the


underground gasification of seams of coal, which for various reasons do not lend themselves readily or easily to ordinary coalmining methods. I am interested to note that these experiments have now spread to Worcestershire, and hence my interest in this matter.
Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether the gasification of coal and the experiments being conducted for the application of these methods are the responsibility of the Ministry, the National Coal Board, or of the Gas Council? If it is the National Coal Board, is the right hon. Gentleman providing, in this short Bill, for any part of the essential research expenditure involved in gasification?
Generally, I find very little that is odious in this short Bill; in fact, there is quite a lot to commend it in present circumstances. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] As hon. Members opposite who are saying "Hear, hear" so vociferously will probably know, it is the first principle of the Conservative Party, whether in power or in Opposition, to subject to the closest scrutiny, every measure that involves financial expenditure of any description. Therefore, when this simple and seemingly innocuous Measure reaches the Committee stage, I have no doubt that it will be subjected to the most careful scrutiny of every line and comma. We shall devote our energies to seeing that this large sum of money, if we do vote it to the Minister, is properly and wisely spent in the national interest.

6.4 p.m.

Mr. Blyton: I listened today with my usual interest to the right hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. Bracken). He dealt with the Bill vociferously and then told us that he was going to support it. I think that if he had continued his speech any longer, he might have suggested the deletion of Clause 2.
The hon. and gallant Member for East Grinstead (Colonel Clarke) made a unique speech. He suggested that all those profitable parts of the industry, like farms and brick and tile works, should be handed over to private enterprise and that the amount received for them should go towards reducing this sum of £150 million. I hope that we shall not accept that advice. These farms were bought by private enterprise. They are to be found on the land surrounding the pits, and they

were bought to prevent the mine-owners having to compensate for subsidence to any houses built in the area. The National Coal Board have taken them over and have paid compensation for them. Why should the Board now be denied this advantage that private enterprise enjoyed for so many years?
This £150 million is a natural sequel to the Reid Report. That Report condemned private enterprise over the previous year and stated that the only way to put the industry on its feet was to spend £300 million, which was based on 1944 prices. It is bound to mean more capital if we are to modernise the pits and have a concentrated plan of production in the different areas. It is essential that capital should be given to the National Coal Board if we are to have the sinking of new pits and the new washing plant we want to see to provide us with cleaner coal. This is part of the long-term plan that has been produced. It is a second phase in the nationalisation of the industry.
It must be remembered that when the industry was taken over, there were 500 uneconomic pits which were losing from £2 to £7 per ton. These pits cannot be put into proper production inside of four or five years. It takes many years to modernise an old pit, and in many instances it is far better to let an old pit work itself out than to spend large sums of money which cannot be justified by the amount of coal that can be produced. It would be impossible for the Minister to detail £1 by £1 exactly how this money is to be spent on the development of the mines. Mining technique will change from year to year, and probably from month to month. New methods of production have to be introduced into the coalfields. I heard someone suggest that it was silly to talk about water in the pits. That shows his ignorance, because there is hardly a mine in England that has not got water in it. The hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) should have the common sense to know that the 1911 Act is absolutely outdated for present mechanised mining.

Mr. Nabarro: It may be outdated for mechanised mining, but it is still the operative statute for safety provisions in the mines. It is the operative statute upon which His Majesty's inspectors of mines work, and therefore it is a pertinent statute.

Mr. Blyton: I have been a lodge secretary for 25 years, and if the hon. Member worked in my pit, on the strict letter of that Act, he would not get enough coal to cure the heartburn. The facts are that if the miners worked strictly in accordance with that Act the output would be very low indeed. It is recognised on all sides that we need a new Act to meet the present situation.

Mr. Bracken: I am glad to hear the hon. Member say this, because he and I were Members of a Committee and, when we proposed a modern mining Act, we were voted down by him and his mining friends merely because of his party Whip. We would welcome a mining Act and support it in every way.

Mr. Blyton: I remember the incident very well. We were dealing with the question of the National Coal Board having power to export coal. The right hon. Gentleman was trying to keep that in the hands of private enterprise, and we defeated him. The revision of the 1911 Act was a side-show to try to get us to defeat the Bill.

Mr. Bracken: Nonsense.

Mr. Blyton: I am not saying anything that is derogatory to the mining inspectors. The mining inspector is not in the pit every day. If we were to have an inspector in the pit for eight hours every day we should want an army as big as Stalin's to control the mines of the country.
In the days of private enterprise, the management of the pits was always governed by the cost factor. The hon. and gallant Member for East Grinstead has made the suggestion that we should hand over the farms, brick and tile works and other subsidiaries to private enterprise. I suggest to him that in the Committee stage, if this Bill is going to be fought line by line and comma by comma, he should get the Opposition to move the deletion of Clause 2 and give the £6 million compensation which the ex-coalowners are to receive to the National Coal Board, so as to reduce the £150 million to £144 million, and thereby endeavour to help the Board.

6.11 p.m.

Mr. Slater: I shall occupy the time of the House for only two or three minutes. A number of questions have been asked of the Minister

in regard to this Bill and the extra money required. That is quite in order. I believe that when nationalised undertakings are established, they should become the concern of every Member of the House. Why are these questions being asked? I wonder if those people with such good memories, remember the bad old days when we constantly asked Questions from this side of the House and never received replies.
When we operated under the old ascertainment system, we were never told anything about costs other than wages. I remember when the coal-owners of this country had to make their application to such as the Provident Assurance Company in order to carry on. There is nothing wrong in the Minister coming here on behalf of the National Coal Board and asking for an increase of the amount of money, or for even twice the amount that is provided, in order to give the Board what they require.
I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton) deal with the point raised about farms and brick works. I thought that he would have gone on to deal with the particular matter which concerns the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), of subsidence in opencast mining. If the N.C.B. were to give way to the suggestions made by hon. Members opposite, they would undoubtedly be saddled with a great deal of compensation for subsidence.
Much has been said about the steel position. The suggestion has been made that if we are to have steel in the pits, the only way to get it is by producing the coal. I remember that we used to be told that it took two tons of coal to produce a ton of steel.

Mr. Tom Brown: Four tons.

Mr. Slater: Therefore, it is very important to have the coal to get the steel. Steel has been introduced into the mining industry at a very rapid rate for props, and so forth, and I believe that those responsible on the N.C.B. for management are trying to ease the position in respect of the increased cost of running the mining industry. When this Bill goes into Committee, I hope that if the Opposition find it necessary to move Amendments to deal


with the farms and other subsidiaries which have been referred to, we shall stand four square against them. It would mean a heavy loss to the industry if these things were allowed to go out of the industry and were taken over by other people.

6.16 p.m.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: The debate has ranged over a great number of points. I think that the most surprising thing that has been said is one by both the last speakers opposite, the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Slater) and the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton) who asserted that the farms and brick works and other ancillaries of the National Coal Board are the only paying items.

Mr. Blyton: Those were the only points raised by the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), and that is why I restricted my remarks to them.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: The hon. Member referred to them as the only profitable parts of the industry. It seems to me extraordinary that the National Coal Board, with all its responsibility, should be defended by hon. Members opposite because it may be competing with the Ministry of Agriculture. The hon. Members for Houghton-le-Spring and Sedgefield and other hon. Members opposite have gone back far into the past. They have used every means to obscure the present issue before the House. It seems to me that they are getting more and more into trouble when they try to rake up their party shibboleths from past history.
It was only a year ago that we were debating the Coal Industry Bill, and one of the main objects of the Opposition was to bring the whole of the safety regulations embodied in the 1911 Act up-to-date. That comprised half of the Bill. We on this side of the House pressed the Minister of Fuel and Power and hon. Members opposite for this to be done. It was voted down by the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring and the Minister of Fuel and Power.

Mr. Nabarro: Thoroughly dishonest.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: They refused the opportunity to bring the safety regulations up to date. I think that it would be much better if hon. Members

opposite, instead of trying to prove how much better they are in comparison with the past, would spend a little more time in trying to prove how much better they hope to be in the future. The longer this Parliament goes on, the less attention hon. Members opposite seem to give to the future, and the more they hope that they can drag their slow, weary way along by comparisons with the past of which they themselves may complain, but which relies for its truth solely upon their own prejudice.
I think that the Minister himself is responsible for much of the devious ways we have taken this afternoon. His speech consisted of a welter of figures many of which had nothing to do with the Bill at all. When this afternoon he answered a Question, which seemed to be planted nicely for him, concerning the extra coal which he hoped to have for domestic and private consumers next winter, he produced a nice global figure. He had not the slightest idea what real benefit it meant to the average private or domestic consumer. He simply produced it as much as to say "Am I not clever?" He had no idea what the figure meant.
I think that is true of most of the figures which he produced this afternoon. If I may alter a famous quotation of Wellington, who said, "I do not know what effect these troops will have on the enemy, but by God, they frighten me," I think that the same might be said of the Minister—he did not know what effect his figures would have on the Opposition, but they certainly frightened him. He referred to the Reid Report and the National Coal Plan. He said, "We have not had time to do anything about it because I only got it last week." As it was published in October, 1950, seven months ago, how is it that it has only just reached his Ministry? It seems a most extraordinary statement to make particularly when introducing a Bill which is alleged to carry out a document which for seven months has apparently been in every pigeon hole except the Minister's "In" tray.

Mr. D. Griffiths: Is it not much better for the National Coal Board and the National Union of Mineworkers to discuss the problem of the new Coal Plan rather than that it should be discussed by politicians who do not understand the industry?

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: I did not think that the Minister was to be considered a politician who did not understand the industry. The Minister is responsible for the coal industry, and, even if the Coal Board and the trade unions should discuss it, one would have thought that the Minister would have taken the precaution of looking at it as soon as possible, but apparently that is not so.
It is true that this is a short Bill but it gives the Minister very great power without any corresponding responsibility to this House. He said that the House could always bring him and the Chancellor of the Exchequer to account, but does he realise that any money spent in January of this year is not reported to the House until July next year, some 16 months later. We have not, in a practical sense, any control whatsoever of money voted by the House for the National Coal Board. In another spate of figures the Minister said that he had powers to issue £150 million and had used a gross amount of £41 million and a net amount of £33 million, because of certain adjustments which I will deal with in a moment. If he will look at page 1 of the National Coal Plan—he may have got as far as that by this time—he will see that up to date the Board have invested £72 million, with a further commitment of £63 million. That is £135 million altogether authorised. How does he square this figure with the £33 million net which he quoted this afternoon? It is a matter of a difference of £100 million. Perhaps he can tell us something about that.

Mr. Noel-Baker: They have taken £75 million out of the depreciation allowance and they have taken other money which will have to be replaced later for workmen's compensation.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: To take the £75 million first, that would bring the difference between the two sets of figures down to about £30 million. Is the Minister going to say that the National Coal Board has borrowed £30 million from other sources outside Parliamentary control?

Mr. Noel-Baker: No, Sir. What I explained was that £12 million came to the Board from the sale of railway wagons—that is an important item—and they sold some other assets making up

the £15 million. Then they used money at their disposal which will ultimately have to be replaced for workmen's compensation. They have temporarily used it for this purpose and will have to replace it later on and, therefore, I have to make provision for it in the total limit I provide in the Bill, namely the £300 million.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: The right hon. Gentleman will agree that the gap between his figures and those of the National Coal Plan is somewhere between £15 million and £20 million which is accounted for by temporary borrowings from unauthorised sources. Under what authority did he make those borrowings? What right had he to borrow from the Industrial Injuries Fund? That is money paid for a certain purpose. What right has he to borrow it and put it into the capital account and say that he will pay it back later? Perhaps he will tell me that?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I did not borrow it. The Board had the money at their disposal and they used it subject to replacement.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: I have here Sections 27 and 28 of the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act which very carefully lay down the Minister's powers and responsibilities. Under what authority or right has he allowed, or authorised, or permitted—whichever may be the right verb—the National Coal Board to use this money for a purpose other than that for which it was subscribed or authorised by Parliament? Perhaps the Minister will answer that question later.
If, out of the depreciation, he is to expend so much on capital, why should he need to increase the global sum of permissive capital to be borrowed? He has made a great point that depreciation was twice as much as it was in "the bad old days." I am afraid that even the Minister could not refrain from making one or two of those allusions. But again, as is so typical of statements by the Minister of Fuel and Power, he did not tell us in what relation that depreciation was reckoned. He did not say whether it was on the cost of replacement or on the existing value of the machinery. He simply produced the figure out of a bag. He will realise that it is entirely in the setting in which the


figure is placed that its value to the House is truly to be appreciated. As it stood it meant absolutely nothing at all except a blandishment to the ranks behind him with the hope also to bamboozle the Opposition.
If one is to assume that he has this amount available from depreciation, why does he not propose in future to continue using that sum, ploughing it back into new capital development? Why should he suddenly say that he wants to double the sum? He has given us a set of figures saying that he wants so much for ancillary apparatus and so much for capital development. An hon. Member said that he could not expect the Minister to come here and account for all this money pound by pound, but when we are dealing with over £100 million we can at least expect to be given some broad general lines about the way the money is to be used, particularly when there is considerable uncertainty whether the raw materials will be available. The National Coal Board could make out a very good case for top priority in capital development, but they will have to fight very hard to maintain their full quota of ancillary equipment. I should have expected the Minister to give us far more details of how he expected the £100 million to be employed.
I do not believe that the Minister understood what was in his brief when he talked about the banking arrangements between himself and the Board. As I understand the Act, he is responsible for charging a rate of interest as he thinks fit on sums lent to the National Coal Board and he is also entitled to say what shall be the length of a loan for which the Board asks. I hope the Minister will answer two simple questions for me. What is the rate of interest that he has charged to the National Coal Board? What is the length of years for which he has granted loans? We shall more easily be able to appreciate the present set-up if he can give us that information.
I hope that the Minister will say something to explain why issues of money should be made out of the Consolidated Fund. Why should not the National Coal Board go to the stock markets like any other body? Why should not they be forced to put their requirements in such terms as to place them on the same level

as anybody else? If they have a good prospectus and their terms are proper, they will get the money. Why should they be allowed to borrow from the Consolidated Fund, particularly when we remember the effect of the housing authorities through the local loans boards, and the National Coal Board in this instance on the national finances. What does all this concealed Socialist borrowing between one Government Department and another mean? All it means is that when we come to a Budget we have to pay more taxes. How much better it would be if all these people went on the market like ordinary private enterprise, for then they could get the money if they deserved it, and get it at the proper market rate, and we should have to pay no more by way of taxation.
Then we come to the point of the temporary borrowing of £10 million. I thought the Minister tried to say that this was a very small sum, but is it realised by hon. Members opposite that they are asking for borrowing powers of 4 per cent. of their total turnover. That is an enormous figure and one which no private enterprise would dream of asking any bank to grant. Again, if the Minister is sincere in his statement that he wants Parliament to be able to watch over the National Coal Board, and, if he wants to see, if they go wrong, that that fact is known in this House, so that we can keep, not day to day control, but yearly control over their affairs; then one of the best ways of doing it is by limiting the temporary powers of borrowing.
In that case the Minister would have to come to this House and we would know at the earliest moment possible that things had gone wrong. It is completely wrong for the Minister to say, "The Coal Board has lost in one year £20 million, therefore I must have temporary borrowing powers up to £20 million because, although I have scrounged here and there before, I cannot do it again. Therefore the sooner I get a limit of £20 million, the sooner I shall be saved from having to come to this House and telling it why I want more money." That is completely wrong, and a negation of that Parliamentary control to which the Minister at least pays lip service.
In conclusion may I say that while supporting the Second Reading of this Bill we shall have a great deal to say on the Committee stage about its implications. We want two things. We want


to keep the control of public money in this House, not give away these large chunks of £100 million here and £10 million there to some outside body which we cannot challenge until 16 months after the money has been spent. Secondly, we shall want from the Minister a much more detailed report of the way he has exercised his powers of spending the £150 million already granted, and of the way in which he hopes to spend the £150 million for which he now asks.
There is no one in any quarter of the House who does not want to see the coal industry succeed. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. Bracken), said, the sooner we can take coal out of party politics the better for everyone. We shall be the first to try to help, but we do not propose to try to do that merely by shovelling public money down the drain. We want to see that every action we take is to the best advantage of the coal industry and of the nation.

6.33 p.m.

Mr. Philip Noel-Baker: If I may, with the leave of the House, speak again, I should like to reply——

Mr. Bracken: Not at some length.

Mr. Noel-Baker: I hope not at some length—to the agreeable and friendly debate we have had this afternoon. Perhaps I might start with the hon. and gallant Member for Fylde, South (Colonel Lancaster), and say that when we come to the Committee stage I hope it will be on the Floor of the House, not upstairs, and that I shall be able to give the hon. and gallant Gentleman and other hon. Members full satisfaction.
May I next answer the indignant protests of the hon. and gallant Member for New Forest (Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre) about the National Coal Plan and what I said about it. What has happened is that, over a period of years, doing the work as I think with considerable expedition, the Coal Board drew up the plan. They published it, in order that everybody concerned might be aware of it at the earliest moment. That was in October last. They said in the introduction that it was liable to change. They announced before they published it that the first move they wished to make was to discuss it with representatives of their employees.

Therefore, as soon as they could, when those representatives had time to study the plan and to discuss it in the different regions and in the different coalfields, they brought it to the National Consultative Council for debate.
The discussions of the National Consultative Council finished about 10 days ago. Therefore, the plan was presented formally to me only last week. I arranged that it was sent to all hon. Members and, had they desired to debate it sooner, I should have had no objection and I should have done my best to reply to the debate. But plainly it was not right for me to initiate a debate before I had received the plan from the Board officially, or had time to consult my colleagues and to get a Government decision about it.

Mr. Bracken: May I interrupt the right hon. Gentleman? He really cannot hope to get away with this type of explanation. The plan has not been altered. The very plan that has been going round, according to the statement of the Minister, for the last seven months, is the plan he has had on his desk and seen for the first time.

Mr. Noel-Baker: No.

Mr. Bracken: Furthermore, has this House no rights? Have we become a sort of syndicalist State? We should have had an opportunity of discussing this at the same time as anybody else.

Mr. Noel-Baker: If anybody had desired it, I have no doubt that a debate would have been arranged, but I repeat that it would have been quite wrong for me to initiate a debate before I had formally received the plan from the Board and had a chance of consulting my colleagues in the Government about it.
We all know that something very like the plan has to be carried out. No hon. or right hon. Gentleman opposite has denied it. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. L. Hale) regretted that I did not say more about the plan. Hon. Members opposite have complained that I said too much. My hon. Friend could have found out from the plan itself the answers to all the questions he put to me. As the right hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. Bracken) has said, it has been in his hands for a considerable time. I have no doubt


that it will be debated, and I shall make a fuller exposition of it on what I think will be a more appropriate occasion.
Now may I answer questions put to me by the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), about the meaning of the sums included in the Bill. He asked what part of the £300 million was advanced——

Mr. Nabarro: The specific question I asked was what part of the additional borrowing facilities of £150 million could be attributed to inflation in the cost of equipment and what part would be devoted to expansion within the industry.

Mr. Noel-Baker: The answer to that question, which I am obliged to the hon. Member for putting so clearly, is this: the sums in this Bill are calculated on the basis of the sums to be invested under the National Coal Plan—£635 million. That real investment, real equipment, machinery and so on—is based on 1949 prices. As I explained in my original speech, that would probably require—it is all a matter of judgment and forecast—advances from me to the Board of up to £268 million. Therefore, the limit of £300 million allows a margin for rising costs. It may not be enough. If it is not enough, we shall have to come back to the House with another Bill asking for leave to raise it, but I hope it will be enough. I have every reason to think it will.
The hon. Member also asked me questions about research into the use of coal. The sums spent on research have been greatly increased since vesting day. On my Vote the House gives for research by the Ministry about half a million a year. The Coal Board expenditure is now about half a million pounds. They have built that up since vesting day from almost nothing. As the hon. Member understands scientific research, he will know that it cannot be developed at a faster rate than that. I agree with him in attaching immense importance to the development of research as quickly as it can be done—which means as quickly as the competent personnel can be assembled and given the equipment they require.

Mr. Nabarro: Does the advisory panel which helps industrialists who want advice on the utilisation of coal, come under the Coal Board or the Ministry of Fuel and Power?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I am not quite sure what the hon. Member means by "advisory panel." I have a service of fuel efficiency engineers, I have a service of mobile testing units, I have now a Fuel Efficiency Committee of five or six experts, whose names I announced the other day, and I have a Scientific Advisory Committee who advise my chief scientific officer on general research. [An HON. MEMBER: "Where does the Minister come in?"] All this is under the Minister; none of it has anything to do with the Coal Board.
Perhaps I may answer the hon. Member's other question about underground gasification. The experiments are being conducted by my Ministry, with contributions of equipment and so on by the National Coal Board. There may be some small financial contribution, but mainly the expenditure by my Ministry does not come under the Bill.
I was asked a number of questions—by, amongst others, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christ-church—about some of the assets—farms and so on—which the Coal Board still hold, and why they continue to hold them. They inherited these farms, as they inherited the brickworks, from the old colliery companies. They have kept them for the same reason that caused the colliery companies to buy them—very good business reasons. I believe that the farms are well managed, and until the right hon. Member shows solid reasons for thinking otherwise, the present arrangement should continue. As regards the brickworks, it is known that many of the old companies, as one of my hon. Friends has said, built them close to their pits. Some of them were put up for the purpose of making bricks from the pit debris. I am certain that those reasons still hold good and that there is no good ground for dispensing with the brickworks now.
The hon. and gallant Member for East Grinstead (Colonel Clarke) asked whether, in their capital development, the Board were making use of outside engineers for such work as tunnelling underground. The hon. and gallant Member knows, I expect, that mining engineers and miners are very nervous about having people working underground who have not been trained to the mines. They know that there are dangers with gas, and sometimes


with water, which probably would not arise in other kinds of underground work.
As far as water is concerned, it is not generally known that in many pits, because of the amount of gas and water present, several tons of air have to be pumped down and several tons of water pumped up for every ton of coal which is obtained. This explains why a mining engineer tends to be nervous about a civil engineer coming in to do part of his job. The Board are, however, making experiments. They are using one firm, so far with great success, in driving a level roadway through stone. They are using another firm to make a shaft at Rothes, and I think I can give the hon. and gallant Member a guarantee that the Board will develop this work as much and as fast as it is safe to do so.
I was asked also by the hon. and gallant Member what the £115 million on "ancillaries" would cover, and what new plants were to be constructed. The biggest item, of course, is coke ovens. We need more coke for steam, and we need more gas for industry and for the householder. The demand is constantly rising. This year, 8 per cent. more gas has been sent out from the gasworks than in the corresponding period last year. That is an immense increase in a period of 12 months. The projected South Wales gas grid will all be based on new Coal Board coke ovens which are being constructed. Some of the other items will be other kinds of by-product plant—briquette making, and so on—colliery workshops, which sometimes need reorganising, re-equipping and, indeed, reconstructing, and colliery power plants, in which, by modernisation, very great economies can sometimes be made.
I do not want to go into the debate as to whether up to date we have got value for our money. Perhaps at a later stage we may have to do so. I say only this. Certain figures about O.M.S. have been quoted. In the appendix to the Reid Report is a table which shows that the output per man-shift in this country rose before the war by 13 per cent. In Belgium the increase was 40 per cent., and in Holland, 101 per cent.; other countries also showed larger increases. Since 1945, however, we have had an increase in O.M.S. of 19 per cent., and so far this year the increase is 22 per cent.

That shows that we are getting the returns for which we might have hoped on the capital investment which has been made.
I was asked by the hon. and gallant Member for New Forest, who wound up the debate for the Opposition, questions about finance and how the money which is advanced to the Coal Board is repaid. The advances are funded into 50-year terminable annuities, having interest at the gilt edge rate current at the time of the advances. That is to say, if an advance was made when the Board was originally set up, it would have been at the rate of, I think, 2½ per cent. Today, it would be 3 per cent.
The hon. and gallant Member next asked me the basis on which depreciation was calculated. It is based on the cost of the assets to the Board, and not on replacement values. As the fixed assets were acquired during 1947 and 1948, the difference is not really of much importance; 1949 is the year to which the figure of 1s. 8d. relates.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Could the right hon. Gentleman give any rough idea of how the Board arrive at the capital value of the assets?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I think on very conservative business lines. They calculate the probable life of the asset and so on, and the price they have had to pay for it. If I may, I will give the hon. and gallant Member a fuller explanation at a later stage.
I was asked why we do not propose in future to use depreciation for meeting part of the large capital investment which the Board have to make. But that is, in fact, what we do. If the hon. and gallant Member looks again at my original remarks this afternoon, he will find that the Board expect to pay something like three-quarters of the £635 million from depreciation, leaving about £160 million to be advanced. That is the answer. It is a very high proportion of the total investment.
The hon. and gallant Member for East Grinstead said that I had implied that there had been no capital investment in the inter-war period, whereas in fact there had been considerable investment. I did not mean to say that, and I think that when the hon. and gallant Member reads my speech, he will find that I did not say it. Since he has raised the point,


however, I must say this. Before the war there were, of course, some very good companies which kept up to date, but broadly the situation was described by the Reid Report in these words. Comparing this country with the Continent, they say,
In Britain, on the other hand, the industry as a whole was in a perpetual state of financial embarrassment.
They say:
One reason … why continental countries have been able to forge ahead in productivity per man is the fact that they have been able to command adequate financial resources with which to carry out major technical improvements.
They talk elsewhere about the atmosphere of financial stringency and the lack of broad vision which it must be admitted generally surrounded the production of British coal in the industry. I am not trying to be controversial, but am saying that the Reid Report made it plain that for a long period, due of course to the two world wars and the years of lean trade and of mass unemployment between the two world wars, there had been underinvestment in coal which had to be made good.

Colonel Clarke: May I add one other reason—that for 25 years before the war the threat of nationalisation hung over the owners the whole time? The Minister knows that it was publicly declared that if they were returned to power, they would nationalise the mines, and that discouraged private investment.

Mr. Noel-Baker: As I say, I do not want to be controversial, but I must confess to the view that if the owners had put back into the industry a good part of what they took out of it in the First World War, we would not have had any trouble about investment.

Mr. Bracken: I think the right hon. Gentleman is getting into strange waters. Suppose it had been known that the Anglo-Persian Oil Company was to be nationalised, the prices on the stock markets would have fallen heavily. They have fallen heavily now. Nationalisation is a terrible threat to property, and the right hon. Gentleman must admit it.

Mr. Noel-Baker: If the industry had invested its profits in the first war, it would have been able to modernise and re-equip itself, and I am certain it would

not have fallen behind its continental competitors. The point is that now nearly everyone is agreed that this financial stringency of which the Reid Report spoke between the wars shall not happen again. We think, thanks to nationalisation, that we are able to put it right.
The right hon. Gentleman asked whether these figures are real, whether we are able to do this investing, whether we will get the steel and investments. I reply in broad terms that armaments cannot be got without coal. Coal production has not yet been held up for want of materials or of steel. I am resolved, as far as I am concerned, that it shall not be so. We have got to have this big investment, we have got to make it real and speed it up if we can. We have to pass this Bill now. I am sure hon. and right hon. Members really agree with that, and since they do, perhaps I may end by saying one thing more. Quite clearly from his speech the right hon. Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch, knows quite well that we have to have this big investment and we have to have this Bill. Therefore, I have every confidence that he will vote for it with the wholehearted enthusiasm he shows in everything he does.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Committed to a Committee of the whole House for Tomorrow.

COAL INDUSTRY [MONEY]

Considered in Committee of the whole House under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees) [King's Recommendation signified].

[Major MILNER in the Chair]

Resolved:
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to extend the powers of the Minister of Fuel and Power to make advances to the National Coal Board for capital purposes, it is expedient—

(a) to authorise the issue out of the Consolidated Fund of such sums as may be necessary to enable the Minister of Fuel and Power to make advances to the National Coal Board for defraying their capital expenditure, so, however, that the aggregate amount of the principal outstanding in respect of such advances shall not at


any time exceed three hundred million pounds, and any such advance shall be subject to the provisions of the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act, 1946, for the making by the said Board of payments to the said Minister of interest on such advances and in repayment thereof;
(b) to authorise the Treasury, for the purpose of providing sums to be issued out of the Consolidated Fund as aforesaid or of providing for the replacement of the sums so issued, to raise money in any manner in which they are authorised to raise money under the National Loans Act, 1939;
(c) to authorise the payment into the Exchequer of sums paid by the said Board to the said Minister in respect of interest on such advances as aforesaid and in repayment thereof, and to authorise the issue out of the Consolidated Fund of sums paid into the Exchequer as aforesaid and the application of sums so issued, in so far as they represent principal, in redemption or repayment of debt or, in so far as they represent interest, in the payment of interest otherwise payable out of the permanent annual charge for the National Debt.—[Mr. Noel-Baker.]

Resolution to be reported Tomorrow.

COURTS-MARTIAL (APPEALS) BILL

Order for consideration, as amended (in the Standing Committee) read.

Bill re-committed to a Committee of the whole House in respect of the Amendments to Clause 20, page 13, lines 11 and 13, standing on the Notice Paper in the name of Mr. SHINWELL.—[The Lord Advocate.]

Bill immediately considered in Committee.

[Major MILNER in the Chair]

Clause 20.—(SPECIAL REFERENCES TO THE COURT.)

6.55 p.m.

The Lord Advocate (Mr. John Wheatley): I beg to move, in page 13, line 11, to leave out "subsection," and to insert "subsections (1) and."
It may be for the convenience of the Committee if at the same time I deal with the following Amendment, in page 13, line 13, at end, add:
(2) Where, on a reference under this section, the person convicted appears before the Court, the Court shall direct the payment by the Admiralty or the Secretary of State (according as to whether the finding that is the subject of the reference is a finding of a naval court-martial or of an army or air force court-martial) of such sums as appear to the Court

reasonably sufficient to compensate the person convicted for any expenses properly incurred by him for the purposes of his appearance and may, if they think fit, also direct the payment by the Admiralty or the Secretary of State (according as aforesaid) of such sums as appear to them reasonably sufficient to compensate that person for any expenses properly incurred by him in carrying on his defence before the court-martial by which he was convicted or before any other court-martial before which were begun, but not concluded, proceedings for the offence with which he was charged before the court-martial by which he was convicted.
The Committee will recollect that a reference to the Court under this Clause, which is treated as an appeal, can only be at the instance of the Judge Advocate of the Fleet, the Judge Advocate General, the Admiralty, the Secretary of State for War or the Secretary of State for Air. The purpose of the reference is to enable these authorities to have the Court determine matters of exceptional legal importance or difficulty instead of the authorities doing so themselves. An Amendment was moved by the Government in Committee to provide that where such a reference is made to the Court under this clause the convicted person should not be ordered to pay costs to the Admiralty or to the Secretary of State.
Apart altogether from this Amendment the Court had power to get costs against the Admiralty or against the Secretary of State under Clause 13 (1) where the Court allowed an appeal. But the Amendment as tabled did not satisfy the hon. and learned Member for Northants, South (Mr. Manningham-Buller) and the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Gage), who criticised it on the Committee stage on the grounds that it would be wrong for a person convicted by a court-martial to have to pay his own costs in any case which is referred to the Court either by the Judge Advocate of the Fleet, the Judge Advocate General, the Admiralty, the Secretary of State for War, or the Secretary of State for Air, irrespective of whether the appeal was allowed or not.
We felt there was great cogency in that submission and these Amendments seek to remove the difficulty which the hon. Members had in contemplation. Accordingly, the present Amendments together require the Court to direct payment of costs by the Admiralty, or by the appropriate Secretary of State as the case may be, of a sum of money to compensate the


person convicted for the expenses incurred by him as a result of his appearance before the Court when a reference is made to the Court under this Clause.
The Amendment goes further even than was contemplated by the hon. and learned Member for Northants, South, as we have also provided by it to allow the Court if it thinks fit, to order costs to be paid to the convicted person in respect of his defence before the court-martial. The Committee will recollect that there is already power under Clause 13 for the Court, at its discretion, to award expenses to a successful appellant in respect of the conduct of the defence at the court-martial itself, but it is thought desirable to include that particular power in this Clause. It is a discretionary power, but it enables the Court to award expenses to the accused person to compensate him for the expense he incurred in conducting his defence at the court-martial. It thereby provides a self-contained code for this procedure within the Clause itself. I think the Committee will agree that that is a desirable thing.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: When the Bill was introduced, it contained a provision whereby cases of great importance, in which principles of some complexity were involved, might be referred, as the Lord Advocate has said, by the Judge Advocate of the Fleet or the Judge Advocate General to the Court of Appeal set up under this Bill. That was obviously desirable, and indeed we welcomed it. But we drew attention, in the course of the Second Reading, that to the fact that as the Bill then stood it was possible that the convicted person who was brought before the Appeal Court, not at his own instigation but at the instigation of the prosecution, might be made liable to pay the costs of the prosecution, that is, the costs that would be incurred by the War Office, the Admiralty or the Air Ministry.
We thought that was very wrong. We drew attention to it, and I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for moving in Committee an Amendment which secured that where there was a reference of this kind there would be no liability falling upon a convicted person, treated under this Clause as the appellant, although the matter was brought before the court by the prosecution. We then

drew attention to the fact that if the convicted person was brought before the Court in that way he really should not be liable to pay the costs of arguing the great question of principle which the authorities wished to have decided. I am glad that by this Amendment the right hon. and learned Gentleman has given effect to the point of view put forward from this side of the House.
As he said in moving the Amendment, it goes a little further than we asked that it should go, but if I am correct it does not really do so in substance because the last half of the second Amendment really repeats part of Clause 13 (1), and even without that part of that Amendment I should have thought that on a proper construction of the Bill, in view of the fact that the reference has to be treated as an appeal by a convicted person, there would have been power possessed by the Court to deal with the costs incurred by the accused person at the court-martial. So as I understand the position, the last half of the second Amendment is really put in to make clear beyond doubt that that can be done, and to facilitate reference to the code which is applicable when there is a reference.
I am a little puzzled by the last words of the second Amendment, where it provides that an order for costs may be made in respect of costs incurred
before any other court-martial before which were begun, but not concluded, proceedings for the offence with which he was charged before the court-martial by which he was convicted.
I find it difficult to conceive of the circumstances under which a man who has been convicted by a court-martial, and whose conviction is the subject of an appeal to the Courts-Martial Appeal Court, could, while that was happening, be brought before another court-martial charged with the same offence. I apprehend that those words are inserted only out of an excess of caution, and as that provision contains no disadvantage to an accused man, I have no objection to it; but I think that must be the explanation.

Mr. Gage: I rise merely to thank the Lord Advocate for these Amendments. As he said, this was a matter which I, together with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northants, South (Mr. Manningham-Buller), raised in Committee. The Lord Advocate's second Amendment has in-


deed gone further than we asked him to go, because it deals with the costs before the court-martial itself. It has gone so far that I confess that I do not quite understand how far it has gone, because as my hon. and learned Friend has said, it allows the Court to award the accused person costs before the court-martial by which he was convicted and also costs
before any other court-martial before which were begun, but not concluded, proceedings for the offence with which he was charged before the court-martial by which he was convicted.
I suppose it is possible to imagine a case in which a man was brought before a court-martial which was dissolved before arriving at a conclusion, and to deal with which another court-martial is set up. It seems to me that in his generosity, the Lord Advocate has imagined a very unusual case. But it is not in any way deleterious to the man. In those circumstances, provided that the Lord Advocate gives us an explanation of those words, I cannot for a moment think that it would be anything but advantageous to the accused man.

Mr. Hylton-Foster: May I ask the Lord Advocate one question merely on drafting? It is in relation to subsection (2), as it will be made to read by the carrying of the second Amendment. Is it clear that the Court may, if they think fit, direct payment in respect of the accused's costs before the court-martial by which he was tried in a case in which that person does not appear before the Court. It cannot, in my belief, be the intention to limit the cases in which the Court can make an allowance for costs before the court-martial to cases in which, as a matter of accident, a person appears before the Court to which the reference is made but about which the person may not care a hoot. Will he then be entitled to costs? It appears to me that as the Clause would be worded, the opening words qualify the right of the Court to award costs right through.

The Lord Advocate: The difficulty which the hon. and learned Member for Northants, South (Mr. Manningham-Buller), had was fully explained by his hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Gage), because there are circumstances in which a court-martial may

begin and for some reason be dissolved before the matter has reached a conclusion. None the less, the accused person can again be tried by a subsequent court-martial. There are a variety of circumstances in which that might occur. A member of the court might die pending the actual trial, and under Section 53 of the Army Act the Court has to be dissolved and a new Court convened. That is merely an illustration. Perhaps this provision shows an abundance of caution, but with a view to covering all cases that might conceivably arise, we have provided for that in the Amendment.
As to the point raised by the hon. and learned Member for York (Mr. Hylton-Foster), a person is only entitled to the expenses which he incurs. If he does not appear or is not represented, he will not incur any expenses, and the question does not arise.

Mr. J. C. Maude: It is a nuisance to have to do something about this matter at this stage, but if one looks at it carefully and takes the case of a man who does not want to appear in person, there is nothing to force him to do so. Yet his case involves a point which is considered worthy of consideration by the Court, and it is argued, and properly argued. The man has counsel—one hopes he would have. Then why, in those circumstances, should not the Court be able to pay the man? I do not see why he should have to be there in person. I must point out that when people appear on appeal, for instance in the Court of Criminal Appeal in London, they appear in the dock but they do not open their mouths.

The Lord Advocate: I think there is some confusion here which I hope I can clear up right away. The word, "appearance" is used in a technical sense. It does not necessarily mean the physical appearance of the appellant. It means the appearance in court either of himself or of someone appearing for him.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I do not think that the Lord Advocate has quite dealt with the point raised by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for York (Mr. Hylton-Foster). If he reads this subsection, he will see that the subsection starts by making it a condition precedent to the court doing anything about costs,


that the convicted person appears before the court. Even assuming that it is an appearance by counsel, that condition has to be satisfied. That condition appears to apply both to the first part, which deals with the costs of appearance before the Appeal Court, and also to the awarding of any costs incurred before a court-martial. From the drafting I think that must be so; and on the drafting as it now stands the Court would not have power to deal with the costs incurred before the court-martial, unless the accused person had in fact appeared before the Appeal Court.
I am sure that is not the intention. Indeed, if we rely solely upon subsection (1) of Section 13 as giving power for dealing with costs in the court-martial, there would be no such limitation. It is purely a drafting point. The intention, I think, is clear and well agreed upon. I therefore ask the Lord Advocate to say that he will consider this drafting further with a view to making any necessary alteration in another place.

The Lord Advocate: I will certainly give that assurance, but I am convinced that my own interpretation is right and that the word is used in a technical sense. But I will give the assurance that I will look at the matter and, if need be, have it corrected in another place.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 13, line 13, at end, add:
(2) Where, on a reference under this section, the person convicted appears before the Court, the Court shall direct the payment by the Admiralty or the Secretary of State (according as to whether the finding that is the subject of the reference is a finding of a naval court-martial or of an army or air force court-martial) of such sums as appear to the Court reasonably sufficient to compensate the person convicted for any expenses properly incurred by him for the purposes of his appearance and may, if they think fit, also direct the payment by the Admiralty or the Secretary of State (according as aforesaid) of such sums as appear to them reasonably sufficient to compensate that person for any expenses properly incurred by him in carrying on his defence before the court-martial by which he was convicted or before any other court-martial before which were begun, but not concluded, proceedings for the offence with which he was charged before the court-martial by which he was convicted.—[The Lord Advocate.]

Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended (in the Standing Committee and on recommittal), considered.

Clause 2.—(SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS RELATING TO THE COURT.)

7.15 p.m.

The Lord Advocate: I beg to move, in page 3, line 3, to leave out from "if," to the end of line 5, and to insert:

(a) it consists of an uneven number of judges, not being less than three; and
(b) (subject as hereinafter provided) at least one of the number of judges of which it consists is a judge of the Court by virtue of paragraph (a), (b) or (c) of subsection (1) of section one of this Act.

The Bill at present provides that the Court shall be deemed to be duly constituted
if it consists of not less than three judges (of whom at least one is the Lord Chief Justice or a puisne judge of the High Court) and of an uneven number of judges.
This Amendment arises out of the discussions we had in Committee on an Amendment by the hon. and learned Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) the purpose of which was to allow the Court to sit without the Lord Chief Justice or without a puisne judge of the High Court where it is required to sit outside the United Kingdom. We are giving effect to that proposal in the immediately following Amendment.
In the course of the discussion, I raised the question whether or not it was justifiable to have the Clause as it stands in the Bill. I felt, and I think it was the feeling of the Committee, that even when the Court was sitting in the United Kingdom, it did not seem right that the condition with regard to the judges should be confined merely to the Lord Chief Justice and the puisne judges of the High Court, because, under Clause 1, judges from Scotland and Northern Ireland are also to be members of the Court. I felt, and again I think it was the feeling of the Committee, that it would be an invidious comparison to confine the condition here merely to the puisne judges of the High Court, to the exclusion of the judges of Scotland or Northern Ireland. Therefore I intimated that I would like to consider between then and now, and after consultation with the Lord Chief Justice, whether or not we should table an Amendment on Report stage enabling any of the three sets of judges set out in Clause 1 (1, a, b, c) to fulfil the conditions with regard to the constitution of the Court.
The Lord Chief Justice was consulted, and notwithstanding the fact that the law to be administered is substantially the law of England, he is in favour of this proposal to amend Clause 2 to the effect of incorporating Scottish and Northern Ireland judges as well as puisne judges of the High Court. I am convinced that that is the right course, and I trust that this Amendment will commend itself to the House.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Neither I nor my hon. Friends wish to quarrel very much with the Lord Advocate in this matter. In Committee he did permit his nationalism to creep out in one or two instances, and he has taken this opportunity to give some documentary proof of it. I gather that he would repeat what he said during Committee stage, that the normal practice would be for the Court to sit in England with either the Lord Chief Justice or a puisne judge of the High Court sitting as one of its members. In those circumstances we have no objection to this Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

The Lord Advocate: I beg to move, in page 3, line 10, at the end, to insert:
(4) Where the Court is directed to sit at a place outside the United Kingdom, the Lord Chancellor may, if he thinks it expedient so to do, direct that paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of this section shall not have effect in relation to the Court while sitting at that place.
This Amendment is one that I have already foreshadowed. It arises as a result of the discussion on the Amendment moved in Committee by the hon. and learned Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd), the object of which was to allow the Court, when sitting outside the United Kingdom, to sit either without the Lord Chief Justice or, now, one of the judges whether they be English, Scottish or from Northern Ireland. At the time I said that the principle was acceptable, but in view of the fact that we wished to look at the whole matter, including the subject dealt with in the last Amendment, the particular Amendment was withdrawn. I did, however, give an undertaking that something would be put down at this stage of the Bill to enable effect to be given to the principle. That has been done by this Amendment.
I would say, further, that I think it manifestly desirable that a judge should

be included in the Court where at all possible. This would normally be the case, but circumstances might arise, particularly during a war, when it might not be feasible. So by this Amendment the power is given to the Lord Chancellor to direct that the condition that a judge be a member of the Court need not apply.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I should like to thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for proposing this Amendment. We thought that it would be an improvement to have something of this sort to give a wider latitude, very much for the reasons which the right hon. and learned Gentleman has given. We thank him, and we accept the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 3.—(RIGHT OF APPEAL FROM COURT-MARTIAL.)

The Lord Advocate: I beg to move, in page 3, line 25, to leave out "provisions of the next following subsection," and to insert:
following provisions of this Part of this Act.
This Amendment is designed to meet an objection raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) in Committee. He wanted us to insert in Clause 3 (1), after the word, "subsection," the words, "and of Section 14." Those who were on the Committee will remember that it was argued that the Clause as drafted was wrong, because the right of appeal is also subject to the proviso to Clause 14 (1). We had a rather academic discussion about that in Committee.
It was argued—and possibly the argument was technically correct—that under the provisions of the proviso to Clause 14 (1) the right of appeal was not taken away from the convicted men at all. I think I put it rather crudely when I said that what happened was that the convicted man was taken away from his right of appeal. However, it is important that the matter should be placed beyond any doubt, and if any reasonable doubt exists it should be eliminated. The purpose of the Amendment is to eliminate doubt. Rather than have any doubt, we propose to give effect to the request of the hon. and learned Gentleman.
The argument adduced in respect of Clause 14 and its proviso is equally applicable to Clause 26 which provides


that a person who, at the time of his conviction by a naval court-martial, was borne on the books of a ship of the Royal Australian Navy or the Royal New Zealand Navy, which was not a ship at that time placed at the disposal of the Admiralty, shall not have a right of appeal to the Court. Therefore, we have to make provision for Clause 26. We propose to add, not the words suggested by the hon. and learned Gentleman in Committee, but the words on the Order Paper today.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Again I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for meeting the wishes of the Opposition. It is the more satisfactory to be able to thank him in this case because he told us to begin with that it was quite unnecessary to have an Amendment. I concede to him the point that the industry and the inquisitiveness which we initiated in this matter led him or his Department to make further inquiries, so that the Bill has been improved even more than we wanted to improve it in Committee by including also the reference to Clause 26. We thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman.

Mr. Leslie Hale: I do not desire to object to the Amendment, but I desire to seek information about the Clause as amended. I apologise to my right hon. and learned Friend that, not having been a Member of the Standing Committee, I am now probably asking a question which must have been answered on some previous occasion, because it is of fundamental importance. The Clause refers to the words——

Mr. Speaker: We are not discussing the Clause: we are discussing an Amendment. We cannot discuss Clauses on the Report stage.

Mr. Hale: I am asking a question arising purely out of the sentence as amended. As amended it will read:
Subject to the following provisions of this Part of this Act, a person convicted by a court-martial may. ….
The only question I want to ask my right hon. and learned Friend is this. The definition of a court-martial in Clause 24 merely refers to an Army and Navy or Air Force court-martial. In the following sentence we have the definition of a field general court-martial. As I read the Bill, I hope it is intended that the word "court-martial" includes, and always has

included, field general courts-martial. I have been unable to find anything in the Bill which makes that clear.
It is a matter of fundamental importance. Every hon. Member who has served in the Forces knows that the moment war breaks out, the whole of the country is on active service. The whole of the Forces in England are on active service, and a field general court-martial frequently takes the place of a court-martial. I should like to be assured that the proceedings of a field general court-martial are intended to be included in the word "court-martial," and that that will be made clear at a later stage.

Amendment agreed to.

The Lord Advocate: I beg to move, in page 4, line 3, at the end, to insert:
(4) Rules of court may provide that, in such circumstances as may be specified in the rules, any such petition as is mentioned in subsection (2) of this section which is presented to such person as may be specified in the rules shall be treated, for the purposes of that subsection, as having been presented to the appropriate authority.
The object of this Amendment is to enable rules of court to be made which will allow a person convicted by court-martial who wishes to appeal to the Court to present a petition to someone who is on the spot. The House will recollect that the presentation of a petition is a condition precedent to the appeal taking place. I think hon. Members will agree that it is essential that the petition should be deemed to be presented when it is handed in by the convicted person locally, wherever he may be. Otherwise, a man will have no means of knowing from what time the period prescribed in Clause 3 (2, b) runs. Moreover, there is the possibility of a petition going astray, particularly in time of war, and not reaching the appropriate authority, or reaching it late. Unless some provision of this nature were included in these circumstances, the result might be that the right of appeal would be lost altogether.
In Committee the hon. and gallant Member for Macclesfield (Air Commodore Harvey) moved an Amendment the purpose of which was to allow a petition to be presented to the accused's commanding officer. We cannot accept that as a general or inviolable rule, because the accused person may have no commanding officer at a certain time. He might be in a civil prison or he might be a civilian. The House will recollect


that he might be brought before a court-martial within a period of three months after leaving the Services. He might be a camp follower. There is such a variety of circumstances where a man would not have a commanding officer, that the proposal of the hon. and gallant Gentleman was not acceptable.
It may be that under the rules which will be prescribed, the commanding officer in many cases will be the person designated; but we have to leave the matter flexible so that the rules can prescribe for a variety of circumstances who is the appropriate person on the spot to deal with any case. The House will recollect that these rules will be brought before the House for consideration before they are put into operation. Thus we keep guard over them and ensure that the proper type of rules are made.
The Amendment which we now propose introduces an addition to the procedure laid down in the Bill. It is important to emphasise that it will still be possible for a convicted man, if he so desires, because he is in the United Kingdom and for any reason he may think fit, to present his petition direct to the appropriate authority without going through this procedure. This procedure is optional. The rules will certainly provide that there will be a person on the spot who will be entitled to receive a petition and thus eliminate any question of undue delay which might mitigate against the interests of an appellant.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: This is an important Amendment, because Clause 3 is one of the most important Clauses in the Bill. I am glad to know from the speech of the Lord Advocate that he has appreciated the arguments we put forward from these benches on this point, first upon Second Reading and again in Committee.
Under the Clause as it stands, there is no right of appeal unless a petition is presented within a specified time, and until after the result of that petition is notified, or a certain prescribed time has expired, it is not possible, though I should have thought it was desirable, for a person far afield to send in his petition and with his petition a notice saying that, if his petition is rejected, he desires to appeal.
Under the Clause as it now stands, that will not do. The petition has to go, and has to be rejected, or the prescribed time has to expire, the appellant has to be notified of the rejection of his petition, and then must put in notice of appeal. The petition had to be presented to the appropriate authority within the time specified; that is to say, to the Admiralty, the Secretary of State for Air, or the Secretary of State for War. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Air Commodore Harvey) pointed out that many things could happen to that petition from the moment when the soldier, sailor or airman signed it in some far-off country, before it got back to the War Office, Admiralty, or Air Ministry.
We therefore urged very strongly that it should suffice to comply with the conditions of this Clause if the petition of the accused person or convicted person was presented within the prescribed time to his commanding officer. Indeed, the Lord Advocate was convinced in Committee by the arguments advanced, for he said then:
But the actual spirit of the Amendment is fully accepted.
He then gave the assurance in these words:
… we shall give effect to the purpose of this Amendment by an Amendment at a later stage."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee C, 13th March, 1951; c. 29.]
We now see an Amendment on the Order Paper which is rather indefinite in its terms, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman, in moving it, said that it might well be the case that the person to whom the petition could be presented would be the commanding officer of the accused, I hope he will go a little further than that and will say that it is the intention, in every case where the convicted person has a commanding officer, that presentation of the petition to him will be sufficient to comply with the requirements of this Clause. I quite agree that it is not enough to put in the Bill that the petition can be presented to the commanding officer, because there may be certain categories who have not, at that time, commanding officers, such as those detained in a civil prison, for instance, and indeed camp followers, who, although subject to military law, have never had a commanding officer.
I hope the right hon. and learned Gentleman will be able to give us a clear and specific assurance that, although it may be left open to the convicted person to send his petition to the Admiralty, Air Ministry or War Office, if he wishes, it will also be provided by these rules that, where he has a commanding officer, it will suffice to present the petition to that commanding officer.
If the right hon. and learned Gentleman will say that that is the intention, and that that is what these rules will seek to provide, I think we can pass from this Amendment, which does indicate an intention to comply, at least to some extent, with the arguments we advanced. I hope that he will be able to put it more strongly than he did before, when he said that it might well be the commanding officer. We should like to be assured that it will be the commanding officer, where the accused has a commanding officer.

The Lord Advocate: I can speak again only with the leave of the House. I can certainly give this assurance. In the normal case, it is the intention that it should be the commanding officer, but there is such a variety of circumstances which might apply that it is impossible to give an absolute guarantee. I think the best answer I can give is the one which I have already given. We should try to see that the rules of court will deal with all varieties of cases which they might have to take into contemplation.
It is perfectly true that we cannot amend, but we certainly can annul, a Statutory Instrument giving effect to the rules of court if that Instrument is not satisfactory. I really cannot give the guarantee in absolute terms which was sought by the hon. and learned Member for Northants, South (Mr. Manningham-Buller), because there might be occasional circumstances which would call for some other form of treatment. I am sure that the general assurance which I give in all sincerity will be acceptable to the House—that it is our intention in the normal case to make it the officer on the spot, such as the commanding officer.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 4.—(APPLICATION FOR LEAVE TO APPEAL.)

The Lord Advocate: I beg to move, in page 4, to leave out lines 9 and 10, and insert:

lodged, within the prescribed period, either with the registrar or, in any such circumstances as may be prescribed, with the prescribed person for forwarding to the registrar.
The purpose of this Amendment is to allow applications made on behalf of an appellant to be lodged either with the registrar or some other person prescribed in the rules of court whose duty it will be to forward the application to the registrar. This Amendment is to ensure that the appellant can make application within the prescribed time in all cases. If abroad, the only method of communication available to him might be the Service method, and, in such circumstances, it would not be right to stipulate that notice should reach the registrar in London within the prescribed time. Accordingly, by virtue of this Amendment, we cater for that set of circumstances.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: This is an improvement to the Bill, and, as such, we welcome it, but I should like to ask the Lord Advocate to give consideration to the possibility of providing that where, for instance, an accused man is advised by lawyers overseas that there is a great point of law involved in this case, where he lodges a petition, it should be open to him, and machinery should be provided at the same time to enable him to send with his petition his notice of appeal in the terms that, if his petition was rejected, he wished to appeal. Under the Bill at present, that cannot be done, or, at any rate, if he does that, the application for leave to appeal will be completely ineffective.
It seems to me to be rather unnecessary machinery to provide that in special cases there must be communication, which means a petition to the registrar, before any application for leave to appeal can be granted I should have thought that it would have been an improvement to this Measure if it was open to the accused person to send forward both his petition and his application for leave to appeal, in the event of the petition being rejected. That is how it seems to me, and I would merely ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to give some thought to my proposal.

The Lord Advocate: The Lord Advocate indicated assent.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 6.—(POWERS OF THE COURT IN SPECIAL CASES.)

The Lord Advocate: I beg to move, in page 5, line 21, at the end, to insert:
(4) Where, on an appeal to the Court against a conviction by an army or air force court-martial, the Court are satisfied that a finding ought to have been substituted, by virtue of powers conferred in that behalf by the Army Act or the Air Force Act, for the finding of the court-martial, they may, instead of allowing or dismissing the appeal, substitute for the finding of the court-martial such a finding as, in their opinion, ought to have been so substituted and pass on the appellant, in substitution for the sentence passed on him by the court-martial, such sentence as they think proper, being a sentence warranted by the relevant Act for the offence specified or involved in the substituted finding but not being a sentence of greater severity.
It may be for the convenience of the House if I were to explain this Amendment and the Amendment to line 33, to leave out "subsection (1), (2) or (3)," and to insert "any of the foregoing provisions," together. The point arises out of the discussion in the Committee stage, when the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Mr. Higgs) asked whether appeal courts in all appropriate cases would have the power to do what courts-martial can do, namely, to make a special finding analogous to rule of procedure 44 (d). Under that rule of procedure, a court-martial, instead of recording a finding of not guilty, may record a special finding if of the opinion that, as regards any charge, the facts which they have found to be proved in the evidence differ materially from the facts alleged in the particulars of the charge, but are, nevertheless, sufficient to prove the offence stated in the charge and that the difference is not so material as to prejudice the accused in his defence.
Accordingly, they are entitled to bring in a special finding, rather than a finding of "not guilty," if the difference is not so material as to prejudice the accused in his defence. The form of such a special finding is that the accused is found guilty of the charge subject to certain exceptions and variations affecting the particulars, but not the statement of the offence. Under Section 70 (1, ee) of the Army Act, Section 70 (1, ee) of the Air Force Act, and Rule of Procedure 53 (a) His Majesty or the Army Council or Air Council, as the case may be, may, in an appropriate case where a court-martial has failed to make a special finding under

Rule of Procedure 44 (D) substitute for the finding of the court-martial a new finding, if it appears that the court-martial must have been satisfied of the facts establishing the offence specified or involved in the new finding, and impose for the said offence another sentence, not being a sentence of greater severity than the sentence imposed by the court-martial.
The first Amendment would enable the Court, if they are satisfied that a new finding ought to have been substituted under Section 70 (1, ee) of the Army Act or the corresponding Section of the Air Force Act and of Rule of Procedure 53 (A), instead of allowing or dismissing the appeal to substitute for the finding of the court-martial a finding which, having regard to Rule of Procedure 44 (D), they think ought to have been substituted and to pass on the appellant a sentence in substitution of the original sentence which is not greater than the original sentence itself. The second Amendment is consequential and applies subsection (5) of Clause 6 to the subsection which is introduced by the first Amendment.

Mr. Gage: This is an obvious and wise Amendment to the Bill because I think it was originally overlooked that there were special findings. Of course, it is only doing for the Court of Appeal what could have been done before by either the Army Council or the Board of Admiralty, and, therefore, it is an Amendment which we on this side welcome, in that it is a very proper alteration to make.

Mr. Leslie Hale: This Clause is one to which I take very special exception because the power to be exercised by it is already exercised by the Court of Appeal in these cases. I do not like the way that a Court can say that a man should not have been convicted, and then, notwithstanding that, can say, "No substantial miscarriage of justice has taken place, and therefore we let the sentence stand." However, I do not think it would be fair on this occasion to press that point which concerns our general law more intimately than it does this particular matter.
I rise now because I gather than the Lord Advocate is confronted with a difficult situation. He rises to explain a Clause, but cannot explain it except with the leave of the House. The Ruling


given when I rose to speak before was that I could speak about the words proposed to be left out, but not about those proposed to be left in. Here we are dealing with the words proposed to be inserted, which are:
Where, on an appeal to the court against a conviction by an array or air force court-martial …
I want the Lord Advocate to tell me, or, if he does not wish to ask for the leave of the House in order to do so, to nudge somebody on his left to answer for him and to say whether that includes a field general court-martial or not. [Interruption.] I am glad to have that assurance, and if someone will be good enough to say it loudly enough so that it may be reported in HANSARD, I shall be quite satisfied.

The Lord Advocate: May I interrupt my hon. Friend to give him that assurance, and the further assurance that I did not intend any discourtesy when I did not answer him on the previous occasion. I did not answer then with the consent of the House for the simple reason that there is a further Amendment on the Order Paper on which I can fully explain the problem which my hon. Friend has in mind.

7.45 p.m.

Mr. Hale: I am glad to have that answer, and if the Lord Advocate is referring to Clause 14, I will now give him the additional information that that Amendment proposes to leave out the words "field general court-martial." That being so, there is no need to define it at all.

Mr. Lionel Heald: There is one small point I should like to raise. The Amendment says:
Being a sentence warranted by the relevant Act for the offence specified or involved in the substituted finding …
Will the Lord Advocate be good enough to give us a little explanation as to what that means? One can understand the word "specified," but to say that one can also impose a sentence which is
warranted ….for the offence specified or involved in the substituted finding ….
seems a little difficult to follow. It may be that there is some explanation connected with the Scottish law, or something of that kind, but it certainly seems that there ought to be some justification for an

extension, if that is an extension, of the trial.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 5, line 33, leave out "subsection (1), (2) or (3)," and insert "any of the foregoing provisions."—[The Lord Advocate.]

Clause 7.—(DECISION OF THE COURT TO BE FINAL SUBJECT TO APPEAL TO HOUSE OF LORDS.)

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I beg to move, in page 6, line 22, to leave out from "appellant," to "until," in line 23.
The House will see that under Clause 7, where the Court of Appeal has allowed the appeal, there is power for the Admiralty or the Army Council or the Air Council to apply to the Attorney-General for a certificate enabling the case to be taken still further up to the House of Lords,. Where such an application is made under Clause 7 (2), it is provided that the Court may make an order providing for the detention of the appellant or directing that he shall not be released except on bail. It was that particular passage of this Clause which attracted the attention of my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Gage). He drew attention to the unlikely event of serving soldiers being released on bail.
We have, therefore, tabled this Amendment because, in the Committee stage, the right hon. and learned Gentleman said that he would give further consideration to the point. As I understand it, it is possible under Clause 7 (2) for the Court to make no order. It is not compelled to make an order, and, therefore, the accused person whose conviction presumably would be quashed by the Court of Appeal would no doubt be immediately released but for the power contained in that subsection whereby the Court may provide for his detention or direct that he should only be released upon bail. In the case of a soldier serving with his unit pending the hearing of the case by the House of Lords the expression "released on bail" does not appear to be particularly apt.
As I see it, this subsection does involve a great possibility that a person convicted by court-martial whose conviction has been quashed after a considerable lapse of time by the Court of Appeal presided over by a High Court judge or by a Scottish judge would then be kept in detention.


although not convicted, until the case is heard in the House of Lords. I am not really directing my observations to that power so much as to the use of the expression that the Court may direct his release upon bail. It is with a view to getting a further explanation from the Lord Advocate, on the Government promise of further consideration of this point, that I beg to move the Amendment.

Mr. Gage: I beg to second the Amendment.
I think this question was originally raised by the right hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) who said the words "released on bail" were singularly inappropriate to apply to a serving soldier because normally when soldiers are being dealt with for military offences they are looked after by their unit, either under close arrest or open arrest or not under arrest at all. The person who knows whether a particular soldier is likely to appear for trial or to abscond is, of course, the commanding officer and he is able to say what steps should be appropriate in his case.
The Court of Appeal really is not an appropriate authority to deal with a soldier in this way. I think the matter could be met quite simply by stating that in such cases the Court shall allow him to be released into military custody, which would not necessarily mean he would be kept under close arrest or even under open arrest but that the military authority should be responsible for producing him on whatever occasion he was required.
If a soldier is to be released on bail and the commanding officer—who is the most likely to do so—comes forward and goes bail, it will be explained to the officer, as it always is explained, that if the man does not appear the officer's £20, or whatever may be the sum, will be forfeited. I think it is a cogent point that the likelihood is that to protect his recognisance the officer would do what otherwise he would not have done and put the soldier under guard to make certain he does not disappear. The whole object of giving a man bail would then be completely lost.
We can get over that perfectly simply by leaving out these words altogether, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northants, South, suggests, or we could say "release into military custody."

I should have thought that to omit the words altogether would have been the best way of dealing with this matter. I do not think this provision is at all appropriate to a serving soldier and I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is not going to be so intransigent about this as he was on a previous occasion upstairs.

The Lord Advocate: I do not think that hon. and hon. and learned Gentlemen opposite can accuse me of being un-co-operative as far as this Measure is concerned. But having promised to look at this matter again and having done so, I find I only get confirmation of my original opinion. The House will appreciate that under the Clause as it stands the Court will have three courses open to it in a case of this nature—either to order the detention of the person who was the appellant, to make no order at all, or to order that he shall not be released except on bail.
This is a question for the discretion of the Court and it is for the Court to determine which is the proper course in any given set of circumstances. By and large, I think we are entitled to trust the Court to do the right thing in the appropriate case because, although ex hypothesi of this procedure the accused person has been successful in his appeal, there is a further appeal being taken by the authorities to the House of Lords and there may be reasons in a particular case, on which I do not want to speculate too much, why it is desirable to keep him in custody or only to release him on bail. Each case will be decided on its merits, but it is wrong to assume that we are dealing with persons who, being released, will immediately go into Service conditions and be subject to Service discipline. Within the ambit of this Clause one may be dealing with a person who, if released, would be returning not to Service conditions and discipline but to civilian life.
One might be dealing with a person who, within three months of his leaving the Service, has been brought back to answer a charge at a court-martial. That person, if he were being released in the terms of this Clause, would not be going to a place where he would be subject to Service discipline but presumably to his own home. It is not unusual and certainly not rare, to find in such circumstances that the Court might think it desirable only to release the individual on


bail being produced, and we have to cover all types of cases.
I do not want to get into the realm of controversy but at the expense of interrupting the conversation between the hon. and learned Member for Northants, South, and the hon. Member for Belfast, South, I should like to inform them that it is not unknown for the criminal courts to direct that bail be found in cases involving military, Air Force or naval personnel. Exactly the same argument could be advanced here. I do not share the misgivings of the hon. Member for Belfast, South, that if the appellant's officer had stood surety for him he probably would put him in the guardroom to make sure he was available for production as and when the case came up. He could only put him in the guard-room if he had committed an offence, or rather only if he had put him on a charge.

Mr. Leslie Hale: I have been put in the guard room at least three times without being charged, and sometimes for quite a long time.

The Lord Advocate: I am sure that was only an omission of procedure and not any miscarriage of justice. Be that as it may, the technical position is that the officer cannot put the man in a guard room unless he has put him on a charge. We know from experience how flexible Section 40 of the Army Act is, but even so I do not think the hon. Member for Belfast, South, made a really fair point. What we have to remember here is that we are dealing with a very unusual procedure where an appellant having been successful in his appeal before the Appeal Court finds the authorities are seeking, on the Attorney-General's fiat, to take the case to the House of Lords.
I had inquiries made and found that in the 10 years between 1940 and 1950 in the civil criminal sphere only five appeals from the Court of Criminal Appeal were taken to the House of Lords on the Attorney-General's fiat, and all those appeals were brought by a convicted person. They were not cases where they were taken the other way round and in the circumstances with which we are dealing in connection with this particular Amendment.
If one takes into account first of all the extreme rarity of a case where an appeal would be taken to the House of Lords by

the authorities and not by the man, and further the rarity of a case where a Court would deem it to be an appropriate case for bail rather than one of the other two methods of procedure, and finally bearing in mind that one is dealing not only with people who will be released into military, naval or Air Force discipline but might be returning to civilian life, it seems to me we are taking a very natural, though perhaps a hyper-critical precaution, by including bail as one of the procedures that the Court, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, might direct.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: With the leave of the House may I say a few words? The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that he would look at this point again. We are grateful to him for having done so and for the explanation he gave, although I am a little sorry that he did not attach quite as much importance to the point raised by my hon. Friend as did the Under-Secretary of State for War who said in the course of the Committee stage that my hon. Friend had pointed out a very real difficulty. I do not know which of the Ministers was right in his description of this point, but in the light of the explanation, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 14.—(SUSPENSION OF DEATH SENTENCES.)

The Lord Advocate: I beg to move in page 10, line 25, to leave out "a field general," and to insert:
an army or air force.
It may be convenient to the House if we also discuss the Amendment in line 28, to leave out from the second "the," to "that," in line 29, and to insert:
force with which that person is present.
These Amendments are tabled to give effect to an undertaking which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for War gave in Committee that the proviso to Clause 14 should be made to apply in the case of a general court-martial as well as a field general court-martial. This arose out of a point that was raised by the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Gage). I hope in the course of explaining these Amendments to allay the fears and doubts in the mind of my hon. Friend


the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. L. Hale).
What the first Amendment does is to remove the words "a field general" and to substitute for them,
an army or air force.
The effect of that will be that the Clause will read:
Provided that, where a sentence of death passed on a person on active service by an army or air force court-martial is confirmed …
Then if we turn to the interpretation Clause we find
'air force court-martial' means a court-martial under the Air Force Act.
We also see that
'army court-martial' means a court-martial under the Army Act
and that, of course, embraces both the field general court-martial and the general court-martial, so that this procedure will apply irrespective of the nature of the court-martial itself. Accordingly, the proviso under this Clause is being widened as a result of the Amendment.
By virtue of Section 49 of the Army Act and the corresponding Section of the Air Force Act, a field general court-martial can only be convened if, in the opinion of the convening officer, it is not practicable that the offence should be tried by an ordinary general court-martial. In the circumstances envisaged here, namely, the exceptional case where a force is completely cut off from the main theatre of war to which it belongs, it may nevertheless be practicable to try a person subject to military or Air Force law by an ordinary general court-martial. When the Clause was originally framed, it was contemplated that that would not be so, but on reflection we appreciate that it might still be possible to have an ordinary general court-martial under these conditions.

Mr. Leslie Hale: This is a matter of vital importance. Does not the Amendment really mean that this Clause applies to every person tried by any court-martial anywhere, or does it not?

The Lord Advocate: Of course it does. I have already given that assurance. I am merely explaining one of the reasons why we are amending the

Bill. The Bill as originally drafted confined this provision to a field general court-martial because it was contemplated at the time that the circumstances where this would arise would be circumstances where one could only have a field general court-martial. We now appreciate that there might be circumstances to which this Clause would apply where, nevertheless, a general court-martial could be convened. Therefore, we are making this applicable to any type of court-martial, be it a field general court-martial or a general court-martial. I hope that this time I have succeeded in allaying my hon. Friend's fears.

Mr. Hale: On the contrary, my right hon. and learned Friend has increased them.

The Lord Advocate: The second Amendment to which I have referred, and which I have brought into discussion for convenience, is made necessary by the first Amendment because the words proposed to be left out being properly applicable only in the case of a field general court-martial, and having been chosen since the troops to be protected would under Section 49 of the Army Act be under the command of the convening officer, these words are not suitable to the case of a general court-martial because such a court-martial may be convened either by the King or by someone with a much larger command than the force whose protection is in question.
The person or persons whose discipline and safety it is essential to secure by the immediate execution of a confirmed death sentence passed by a court-martial on a person on active service will not, for a variety of reasons, necessarily be persons under the command of the officer who convened the court, and for these reasons it is necessary to make the consequential Amendment to which I have referred.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: We welcome this Amendment, but I think that the Lord Advocate in moving it perhaps conveyed a wrong impression with regard to part of it. The House will appreciate that this proviso can only apply where the authority confirming the sentence is satisfied that it is essential in the interests of discipline and for the purpose of securing the safety of those in the force that


the sentence should be carried out forthwith. One must bear that in mind because the proviso certainly does not apply to all courts-martial, since all courts-martial could not come within that proviso.

Mr. Hale: Mr. Hale rose——

Mr. Manningham-Buller: May I continue my argument? These are the two conditions which have to be satisfied. The first matter to which I desire to draw the attention of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. L. Hale) is this. If we are going to have a capital case tried by a court-martial it is obviously much better, if it is possible so to manage it, to have it tried by a general court-martial. There are probably more officers on it, and officers of greater seniority. Therefore, we feel that in every case where possible these capital charges should be tried not by a field general court-martial but by a general court-martial.
Circumstances may arise when it is not possible to hold a general court-martial, but suppose that under this proviso as it originally stood a force were serving in a completely separate theatre where, in the view of the authorities, it would be in the interests of discipline and of securing the safety of the persons in that force that the sentence, if passed, should be executed forthwith; it would follow that, instead of convening a general court-martial, to bring this proviso into play that man would have to be tried by field general court-martial. Therefore, we feel that it is in the interests of the accused person that this Amendment should be made. It is not really widening the scope of the proviso, except in the sense that it is providing that the accused may be tried by a tribunal, if I may say so, of greater authority. But still the proviso does not come into play——

Mr. Hale: I am sure the hon. and learned Gentleman does not wish to mislead the House. I have read this carefully. He may be right in his proposition that the Clause as it works, and if it is worked properly, may ensure that more people on capital charges are brought before general courts-martial, but the Clause as amended means that every man who is tried before any court-martial and on whom the death sentence is imposed can be shot first and the question of his innocence investigated afterwards—subject to one proviso, that the confirming

authority certifies that it is about the right thing to do.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: The hon. Gentleman interrupted me in a middle of a sentence, but I do not object in this instance because his interruption shows that he does not attach any importance whatsoever to the very important part of the proviso—namely, that there must be that certificate to the effect that the execution of the sentence
is essential in the interests of discipline and for the purpose of securing the safety
of the forces. It can only be very exceptional circumstances in which any senior officer could decide to give a certificate under the Clause.
If we accept the position that there must be power to give a certificate in certain instances, then it seems to me that there should be power to have the trial by a general court-martial. That is all this Amendment is concerned with. As the Bill stood, it merely secured that the certificate could be given after trial by a field general court-martial. Personally, I think it is better that the Clause should be as it will be when amended. I do not believe the Amendment will extend the operation of the Clause. It will merely ensure that where the circumstances exist which enable a general court-martial to be held to try a man, then such a general court-martial will be held. I think that will be a very good thing.

Mr. Leslie Hale: Although I appreciate the sincerity of the argument put forward, the meaning of the Clause as amended, if it is to be so amended, is that any person tried before any court-martial and sentenced to death may have that sentence imposed before his appeal is heard if the confirming authority certifies that, for the reasons set out in the Clause, it is desirable to do so.
I know, of course, that I approach this matter from a point of view which was the majority point of view of Members of the House from 1945 to 1950 and, so far as I know, is the majority point of view of Members of the House today—that capital punishment should have been abolished years ago. One of the things which we hoped from this Bill was that at least when a man was sentenced to death, whether on active service or not, he would have a full right of appeal and


the sentence would not be carried out in any circumstances unless and until the appeal had been heard and except in accordance with the decision of the appellate court.
I want to remind the House of one or two things. It is very easy to listen to the sort of sentences we have just heard. I know that my right hon. and learned Friend speaks with great humanity and courtesy and I do not want to associate him with this proposal except in so far as it is put forward on behalf of His Majesty's Government collectively, but I think it is right that he should remember one or two things, and the first is this. When we talked of active service 40 years ago, we were talking of the kopjes of South Africa, of operations on distant fields, of circumstances in which we knew unforeseen difficulties might arise and in which it was almost impossible for a carefully constituted court to consider at great length matters of great importance and transmit them in the way intended. But when we talk of active service in terms of 1939, we are talking of the streets of London or of Northampton or Leicester or anywhere else in the country, because everybody who served in the Forces in 1939 was posted as on active service from that moment and became subject to the proceedings of a field general court-martial merely on the basis of an order that he was on active service.
8.15 p.m.
We are talking now quite vaguely of the sort of case of the man who betrays his troops to the enemy in some foreign field where discipline is so affected or safety so affected that some quite exceptional measures should be taken. Let me ask the House to consider the sort of case which arises in practice under decent confirming officers—men of humanity. I remember one case in particular, quite a simple case which arose during my own service in the A.A. I am quite happy that hon. Members opposite should continue their conversation, but would they please make it not so loud, for that would enable me to continue coherently to collect my thoughts.
This was a case in the A.A., and it was a case of a volunteer regiment. It was a case in which the senior officer—a very decent officer—had recruited a large proportion of his staff in a voluntary unit because they wished to join

voluntarily. His own enlistment inevitably reduced his personal establishment and we had the butler as corporal in charge of a gun site in the Midlands about 100 miles or so from the coast. He had not had much training because he joined after the outbreak of war. A few months later there is a form of action and bombs are dropped near the gun site. He is in command of the little team of that gun site, without having had any special experience of actually operating the gun, on which he has never had any practical training at all. He ducks and loses his nerve for a few seconds and does not fire back.
The charge against that man was cowardice in the face of the enemy. It may seem a little fantastic to say when you are serving on a gun site in Leicestershire that you are in face of the enemy, but technically you are. It may seem a little hard if you are a butler with no military experience and you happen to duck in a moment of fear—and you may prove to be a very gallant man later—that you are none the less liable to be charged with cowardice, but you are.
I remember the case very well, because I was a staff sergeant in those days and the papers were passed to me by the unit commander, who was a man of great humanity and great decency, and one whom I remember with sincere affection. But even then the official view—and it may be the official view of the Army authorities—was that cowardice in the face of the enemy was almost the unforgivable sin. The man was not sentenced to death; he was sentenced to a fairly long term of imprisonment. I tried hard to have it reduced, but I failed.
Who decides these things? Let us just remember who is to decide whether we shall hang the man first and find out afterwards whether he was innocent or not. That is what it means; and I challenge my right hon. and learned Friend to deny it. Surely that it what it means. You hang a man in the interests of somebody else. Nobody suggests that you do it to do him good. It is to keep peace in the unit—and in my view these things never keep peace in the unit. After he has been hanged, the matter then goes to a court of appeal for them to decide whether he should have been hanged or


not. I have had some experience of this sort of thing; I once went to the Court of Criminal Appeal to appeal against sentence after the lady concerned had been released in very special circumstances. We did not get on very well on that. The person charged jointly with her, had previously had her appeal allowed.
That is the position. Let us consider who is to decide. The hon. and learned Gentleman opposite said the matter will be carefully considered, and I know he is quite sincerely and honestly advancing the argument, and I am making no attack on him about this. But the matter is decided by the general officer commanding corps, who may be 10 miles or may be 100 miles or in certain circumstances may be 1,000 miles away; and it is decided merely on the papers which are transmitted to him from the regimental commander of the unit where the man was court-martialled. That is the position.
I sincerely apologise to the House that I realised the position only on reading the Bill today. Otherwise I most certainly would have tabled an Amendment and forced it to a Division. I cannot do that now. This Amendment certainly widens the ambit of the Clause and-brings within this decision every man who is ever tried by any court-martial under the Army Act or the Air Force Act in future. I sincerely and passionately appeal to my right hon. and learned Friend to consider whether this should be. I ask him not to be misled by whoever commands the Forces now—whether it be the G.O.C.-in-Command or the State Department—but to say that the single solitary visionary example of the sort of circumstance which might occur in some future Tobruk is not a sufficient justification for introducing a whole series of provisions which vitally affect our own approach to this matter and which mean that, on this major point, the Bill can be vitiated. It is a Clause which certainly will offend the public conscience.

Mr. Gage: The disquiet which has been expressed by the hon. Member for Old-ham, West (Mr. L. Hale), is the general disquiet that was felt by the whole Committee at an earlier stage, but it is a disquiet which would have existed whether or not this Amendment were made. The

Amendment makes no difference to the matter. One may think it is wrong that any person in a beleagured garrison, or anywhere, should have the power to execute before the right of appeal; one can understand that point of view. It is one which to some extent I share.
As I understand it, this exceptional power is required only in rare cases, and there has to be a certificate of the kind which has been mentioned. The sort of case which is visualised is one in which the responsible officer has to certify that the execution of the sentence forthwith is essential in the interests of discipline and for the purpose of securing the safety of the force under the command of the person who convened the court-martial. In the circumstances which were given by the hon. Gentleman, no convening officer could obviously have given such a certificate. It would have been quite impossible, because it can only be given in the most exceptional circumstances. When the Committee considered this point, we were told that it could be given in such cases as a garrison that was completely beleagured, and could not——

Mr. Paton: Might it not be possible that the certificate would be given by a peculiar officer in quite ordinary circumstances?

Mr. Gage: If an officer were so unmindful of his duty as to give the certificate in circumstances described by the hon. Member, he would himself be liable to court-martial. I should think it would clearly be a case of conduct "to the prejudice," or even of "scandalous conduct unbecoming a gentleman."

Mr. Hale: Does the hon. Member remember a case in the last 40 years of a general officer commanding being charged with an offence of that character?

Mr. Gage: As a matter of fact, I do. There was a divisional commander who was faced with just that charge in North Africa. I happened to see the proceedings. I do not think it is advisable for me to say anything more about it, but I assure hon. Members that that was the case. Quite clearly, no officer would be anxious to exercise this kind of power unless the circumstances were most unusual and peculiar. That is stated in the proviso, and not in the Amendment.
My point is that one may have one objection to the proviso, but the Amendment to some extent improves the position. Our object in moving the Amendment in the Committee was that we felt that if we left the words as they were, a commander reading them might well think that he had to convene a field court-martial which, as most hon. Members know, is often composed of officers with very little experience. The purpose of the Amendment was to permit him to convene a general court-martial. I think that when the Bill was drafted it was thought that in the very unusual circumstances envisaged it was possible only to convene a field court-martial, but we took a different view. We thought there were very few circumstances in which a general court-martial could not be convened.
In the last war, as the hon. Member for Oldham, West, will remember, even though courts-martial which were called "field-general" were convened, they resembled general courts-martial in number and seniority. If we left the words as they are in the Bill, there might be a temptation only to convene an inexperienced court. Therefore, we thought it proper—and I am glad that the Lord Advocate has accepted our Amendment—to leave out the words "field-general" so as to give such an officer an opportunity of convening a more experienced court.
I do not think that the Amendment affects, either one way or the other, the fears expressed by the hon. Member for Oldham, West, and I am certain that he will agree, on reflection, that the Amendment, so far as it does anything, improves the situation. As for his disquiet about the rest of the matter, it need not be dealt with at this point in our proceedings.

The Under-Secretary of State for War (Mr. Michael Stewart): Perhaps I might be able to say a little in partial reassurance of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. L. Hale), at any rate so far as the Amendment is concerned. I think he will agree that part of what he was saying was concerned more with the general spirit of the Clause than with the Amendment. Whether we make the Amendment or not, the position is that in certain circumstances, precisely defined in the Clause, summary power to carry out the sentence before the right of appeal can be exercised, may be used. It is a

matter that can be argued whether there should be such a summary power at all, but I think my hon. Friend will agree that in the last war the death sentence was used sparingly and that the exercise of summary power like this was used very sparingly indeed. It can be used only where it is clear to the officer concerned that it is not only essential for discipline but for the safety of the men in the force itself, that it should be used.

Mr. Leslie Hale: I think my hon. Friend will remember that Sam Johnson said that what concentrates a man's mind wonderfully is the knowledge that he is going to be hanged. It also concentrates the mind of the man faced with summary execution, to know that other people are not being hanged with the same speed as he is.

Mr. Stewart: I think my hon. Friend will also agree that it also clarifies the mind of a man to be shouldered with this responsibility. I do not think we ought to assume that an officer charged with this responsibility is likely to execute it carelessly or recklessly. If we are to have this proviso at all—and this is not the issue that we are arguing now—ought it to apply only when a field general court-martial is convened or also when the other kind of court-martial is convened? I ask my hon. Friend to notice what, in fact, would be the result if we did not make this Amendment. He will notice that this summary power can only be exercised in the case of a person who has already been tried and convicted by a court. If we do not make the Amendment, the summary power can only be exercised on a man who has been tried and convicted by a court which has really less power, authority and prestige. If we make the Amendment, the power can be exercised when it has been possible to summon a court with greater authority, power and prestige.
8.30 p.m.
If we do not make the Amendment we may find that a field general court-martial, a court with less authority, is being summoned where it would be better and wiser to summon a general court-martial, a court with a greater degree of authority. I suggest to my hon. Friend that if he is not satisfied with the general position, with the fact that there should be this summary power at all, he will agree that it is better, if that summary


power is to exist at all, it should exist under the Clause as amended rather than under the Clause as it stands.

Mr. Leslie Hale: I have accepted the argument put forward by the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite. My remarks were in the direction of the second half of the Clause as well. The question of whether there is an Amendment or not is academic to my argument——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew): I was going to suggest that the hon. Member should have asked leave of the House.

Mr. Hale: I will be quite relevant on this——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: We are on the Report stage and the hon. Gentleman must ask the leave of the House to speak again.

Mr. Hale: I ask the leave of the House to make a short interjection. I apologise for not having heard you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I thought that I heard you say something which you have said so often that I was ready to anticipate it.
As the Clause is at the moment, it applies only to a field general court-martial. If the Clause is amended it will apply to any form of court-martial, including a field general court-martial. The right hon. Gentleman said to me earlier that this did include a field general court-martial. Therefore, we have not eliminated the lower type of court; we have merely added the higher one as well, and it can apply to any one of them.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 10, line 28, leave out from second "the," to "that," in line 29, and insert "force with which that person is present."—[Mr. Stewart.]

Clause 17.—(REMOVAL OF PRISONERS FOR PURPOSES OF PROCEEDINGS UNDER PART I.)

The Lord Advocate: I beg to move, in page 11, line 27, to leave out "or."
It may be for the convenience of the House if I also mention the Amendment which follows. The purpose of these Amendments is merely to insert a reference to the Northern Ireland

analogue to paragraphs (d) and (e). They are virtually drafting Amendments.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 11, line 29, at end, insert:
or
(f) section thirteen of the Prisons (Ireland) Act, 1877, or any corresponding enactment of the Parliament of Northern Ireland for the time being in force."—[The Lord Advocate.]

Clause 19.—(DUTIES OF REGISTRAR WITH RESPECT TO APPEALS, &C.)

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I beg to move, in page 12, line 26, to leave out subsection (2).
I do so for the purpose of obtaining an explanation from the Financial Secretary for which I asked on the Committee stage. The House will appreciate that the whole operation of this Bill depends upon subsection (2) of Clause 19 which is intended to secure that all persons likely to be affected will have notice of their rights under this Bill.
It appears to us to be extremely important that every possible step should be taken to acquaint persons charged with offences for which they will come before courts-martial with their rights of appeal under the Bill. I asked for a statement about that during the Committee stage. The Parliamentary Secretary has sent me a very long letter, for which I thank him, explaining exactly what is proposed to be done, but I feel that the matter is of such importance that it is desirable that that statement should be placed on record and made public, and I move the Amendment with the object of affording him an opportunity of doing so.
At the same time, as this is my only opportunity for speaking, I would say that I am sure that his experience of Army Council Instructions is that it is very easy to issue them but not so easy to get them digested by those to whom they are intended to apply and I hope he will see that steps are taken not only immediately after the Bill comes into operation but from time to time to make sure that persons who are accused are acquainted with their rights of appeal under this Measure.

Mr. Gage: I beg to second the Amendment.

Mr. Janner: I endorse what has been said by the hon.


and learned Member for Northants, South (Mr. Manningham-Buller), on this point. One finds in experience that it is not only a question of rights being available; it is highly important that the people concerned should know that those rights are available and exactly what steps they are entitled to take. The Clause says quite clearly that:
The registrar shall furnish the necessary forms and instructions relating to applications for leave to appeal under this Part of this Act to any person who demands them. …
It should be made clear not only that the forms should be supplied to persons who demand them but that an instruction should be given that when a person has been convicted or sentenced he should be made acquainted with the fact that he is entitled to appeal, the method by which he is entitled to appeal and what steps he should take in order to exercise that right should he want to do so. That is rather different from what is contained in the Clause.
From time to time I have mentioned something which is somewhat parallel to this and I am sure the House will forgive me if I repeat that we have on the Statute Book today a large number of statutes which are not understood by the average man in the street and I am sure the House will not misunderstand me if I refer in particular to the Rent Restriction Acts whereby——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The House cannot discuss them now.

Mr. Janner: Just by way of illustration, I wanted to point out that there are other Measures apart from this one which offer a considerable amount of facility and relief to individuals which individuals do not understand and because they do not know that these things are available they do not exercise them. I ask my right hon. and learned Friend to be good enough to give the assurance and particulars requested by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Northants. South.

Mr. Michael Stewart: It is true, as the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Northants, South (Mr. Manningham-Buller), and my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Janner), have said, that the efficacy of the Bill depends on the men in the Forces knowing what their rights are under the Bill.

The hon. and learned Gentleman will agree that the process of informing them begins with an Army Council Instruction and an Air Ministry Order, although it does not end there. Our first step, therefore, will be to issue such an instruction—in the case of the Air Ministry such an order—describing what now is the right, first of petition and then of appeal, under this Bill. We shall see that that instruction and order are periodically reproduced in unit notices until they become part of the general knowledge of the Forces.
Although, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West, has suggested, there are a number of Acts as to the nature of which the public is unaware, I think it probable that by the time we have passed this Bill into law we shall have created sufficient interest in it in the Forces to see that, when we follow it up by the periodic reproduction of instructions and orders, it becomes generally known throughout the Forces that there are these rights of petition and appeal.
That relates to seeing that the Forces in general are informed. Then there is the question of seeing that the individual man who has been convicted not only is aware that he has the right of petition and appeal, but knows how to exercise it. In the Army and Air Force a man is not legally convicted until there has been not only the finding of the court, but that finding has been confirmed. When it has been confirmed, there is always an officer whose duty it is to promulgate the sentences, that is, actually to announce to the convicted man that the sentence of the court has been confirmed. We shall require that the officer whose duty it is to promulgate the sentences in that manner shall at the same time inform the man of his right first to petition—since the right to appeal does not arise until the right of petition has been used—shall describe to him the way in which he may exercise the right of petition, and shall inform him that, should the petition be rejected, there is the further right of appeal.
Then we have to make sure that the actual document, the form on which the man can apply for leave to appeal, is always available. That we shall be able to ensure by seeing that the registrar supplies such forms to the governors of


civilian prisons—since some of the men convicted by court-martial will be serving their sentences there—to the commandants of military prisons and detention barracks, and to the commandants of military corrective establishments. Further, that there are such forms available at all command headquarters at home and overseas, and that there is a copy of the form in the Manual of Military Law and the Manual of Air Force Law, so that if anywhere actual supplies of the proper forms have run out, a copy can be made of the version in the Manual of Military Law or Air Force Law.
As a final precaution we shall see that a notice informing the men of their right to petition or appeal is posted on the cell doors in all military prisons, detention barracks and corrective establishments. I hope I shall not give the House the impression that we are looking forward to the business of petitioning and appealing becoming one of the staple occupations of men in the Forces. Naturally it is our hope that the number of men who are in the position of requiring these rights will be as small as possible.
The procedure of the Admiralty is a little different since there is there no process of confirmation. Once the court has issued its findings, the man is legally convicted. The Admiralty, therefore, propose to issue a pamphlet describing the rights of the man, to see that it is available to the man and to the accused's friend at the trial, and that it is the business of the accused's friend to give the man all necessary information, both as to what his rights are and how he may use them. I hope the House will be satisfied that we are determined to take all reasonable precautions to see that this Bill becomes effective.

8.45 p.m.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: With the leave of the House, I should like to thank the hon. Gentleman for stating so clearly what it is proposed to do. We think it will be satisfactory, and we hope that it will work well. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on being such an excellent spokesman, not only for the War Office on this occasion, but also for the Admiralty and also for the Air Ministry, whose representative here today has not had the opportunity so far of saying anything.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The Lord Advocate: I beg to move, in page 12, line 35, to leave out from "Act," to the end of line 37.
For the convenience of the House, I should like to deal at the same time with the following Amendment. By a previous Amendment to Clause 4 (1), we provided that a notice of application could be lodged either with the registrar or with a person prescribed by rule of court. The purpose of these two Amendments is to impose upon such a person the duty of forwarding the application to the registrar.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: in line 37, at end, insert:
(3) It shall be the duty of a person with whom an application for leave to appeal to the court is lodged in pursuance of rules of court made under section four of this Act to forward the application to the registrar.—[The Lord Advocate.]

Clause 21.—(EXERCISE OF CERTAIN POWERS OF THE COURT BY A JUDGE THEREOF.)

The Lord Advocate: I beg to move, in page 13, line 29, after "appellant." to insert:
upon making a requisition in that behalf within the prescribed period and in the prescribed form and manner.
It is necessary to provide in the rules how and within what period an appellant may appeal against the decision of a single judge, as provided in the clause. The Amendment gives power to make rules for this purpose.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 24.—(INTERPRETATION OF PART I.)

Amendments made: In page 14, leave out lines 25 to 27.

In page 14, line 41, after first "In," insert "this Part of."—[The Lord Advocate.]

Clause 27.—(SAVING FOR PREROGATIVE.)

The Lord Advocate: I beg to move, in page 15, line 31, to leave out "the making of."
Again, for the convenience of the House, I should like to discuss at the same time the following Amendment. During the Committee stage, the hon. and


learned Member for Northants, South (Mr. Manningham-Buller) and other hon. Members argued that it would not be sufficiently explicit to provide that the Royal Prerogative is not curtailed until
the making of an application for leave to appeal to the Court.
There was a great deal of argument as to where we could get a definite terminus beyond which, under the conditions we are contemplating, the Royal Prerogative would no longer be operative.
The proposal now is to make that terminus the time when the application is received by the registrar. This has the virtue of providing a definite period which is capable of being determined. It overcomes the difficulty, which we experienced in Committee, in deciding when the application is made or is determined. I think this is a most satisfactory solution of the difficulties which presented themselves to both sides of the Committee.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I should like to thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for meeting us on this point. The phrase "making of an application" was certainly ambiguous. It could have been argued that a man made his application when he signed the form in making it. The right hon. and learned Gentleman took the view that he did not make it until the case was heard in court. Obviously there should be a great deal of precision about this, because directly the application reaches that particular stage, the power to exercise the Prerogative to quash the conviction ceases. I am sure that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has now found the proper solution, and we welcome the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 15, line 33, after "conviction," insert "is received by the registrar."—[The Lord Advocate.]

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."—[The Lord Advocate.]—(King's consent on behalf of the Crown signified.)

8.50 p.m.

The Lord Advocate: As the House is aware, the purpose of Part I of the Bill is to set up a Courts-Martial Appeal Court broadly on the lines of the Criminal

Appeal Acts. This is not in substitution for or derogation of the existing procedure, but provides for yet a further code of procedure under which a person convicted by a court-martial can carry an appeal to a court which is broadly equivalent to the Court of Criminal Appeal, and still further, in certain given circumstances, to the House of Lords.
While this is yet a further and desirable addition to what I will describe as the Service man's Charter, it would be unfitting if I did not remind the House that the existing procedure, which is still a condition precedent to the invocation of the procedure introduced by Part I of the Bill, provides the accused person with an automatic review of his case at different levels, irrespective of whether he himself appeals by way of petition or not, and to that extent he enjoys a benefit not enjoyed by a person convicted in the civil criminal courts. I need not go into the reasons why it was deemed desirable to give this further right to a person convicted by a court-martial, as it is generally accepted on all sides of the House that it should be so, but it is right to say that this new addition results in a comprehensive code under which it may be said that the rights and liberties of Service personnel are safeguarded at all stages.
I do not propose to discuss the Bill, as amended, in detail. It will perhaps suffice to say that the personnel from whose ranks the courts will be constituted I am sure will command approval and respect; that the procedure will be as efficient and practical as it is possible to make it; that the powers of the Court are sufficiently wide to enable substantial justice to be done in all the varying types of cases which come before it; that the financial interests of the appellants are properly safeguarded by the provision of legal aid in appropriate cases and power conferred on the Court to award costs in favour of the accused person, likewise in appropriate cases; and, finally, that where justified an appeal can be taken on the Attorney-General's fiat right to the House of Lords.
The second part of the Bill deals with provisions affecting the offices of the Judge Advocate General, and I do not think these provisions, which were fully accepted in Committee, call for any detailed discussion at this stage.
I think I can fairly claim that the Bill, as presented, was a good Bill, but—like most Bills—it has benefited by the detailed examination which it received at its various subsequent stages and it has emerged—like most Bills—a better Bill than it was originally. For this I would like to thank hon. and hon. and learned Members on all sides of the House. I am sure it has been the desire of each and every one of us to look at each point objectively and disinterestedly with a view to achieving the best possible results, and I trust that we have been successful in this connection. I feel that it would be ungrateful if I did not also acknowledge the benefits which have accrued to the Bill from the careful consideration given to it by the officials of the various Departments concerned and by Parliamentary Counsel.
Having paid my acknowledgments to hon. and hon. and learned Members opposite for their contribution, which has been substantial, I should also like to thank my hon. Friends on this side of the House, not only for their contributions, but in some cases for their restraint in allowing this Bill to go through as expeditiously as it has. It is with confidence and with pleasure that I invite the House to give this Bill its Third Reading.

8.55 p.m.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: The right hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) probably had his memories revived by the words of the Lord Advocate and his mind taken back to the days shortly after 1945 when the Government were subjected to considerable pressure to secure the appointment of the Lewis Committee with a view to going into the whole system of Army and Air Force courts-martial. A long time has elapsed since then. We had the Lewis Committee; we had its report. Then we had the appointment of the Pilcher Committee to deal with the naval side. A great many people did a great deal of work—not only in tendering evidence to those Committees but on the Committees themselves. I know that certainly one of the Committees had to do a great deal of work.
This Bill is really one result of the labours of both those Committees. A long time has elapsed since this revision of court-martial procedure was first set on foot. I say that it is the result of the work of both those Committees because

both of them recommended in some form or other the constitution of a court of appeal for accused persons convicted by courts-martial. Of course both Committees made many other recommendations. Effect has already been given to some of these, while no decision has yet been arrived at in regard to others.
My own view is that the recommendation now embodied in this Bill was perhaps the most important and far-reaching of all their recommendations. I repeat that a long time has elapsed, and I fear that a considerable time will still elapse before this Measure comes into operation. Not only has it to reach the Statute Book, as I trust it will, and speedily; rules have also to be made providing for the time-limits within which petitions may be presented and to deal with various other matters. I do not think it will be very easy to draft those rules so that they work satisfactorily in all the varied circumstances under which military, Air Force and naval law has to operate. I hope that they will prove easier to draft than I anticipate.
The Lord Advocate described this Bill as the Service man's charter. I do not think that that is a really correct description.

The Lord Advocate: I am sure that the hon. and learned Member does not wish to misrepresent me. I said that it formed part of what would be the Service man's charter.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that it was part of what would be the Service man's charter, but I am not so sure that that is really a correct description, because I hope that a decreasing number of Service men will require to take advantage of this Measure. At the same time, I am sure it will effect a considerable improvement.
As the Lord Advocate said, there is an automatic review of all convictions, but in spite of that this Bill means not only a big change but also a step forward in securing that courts-martial, which generally operate extremely fairly and always to the best of their ability, will not result, so far as it can possibly be avoided, in a conviction owing to a misinterpretation of the law or owing to some other step in the process going wrong.
We on this side of the House welcome the Bill. It has certainly had a very


detailed examination in Committee. I am grateful to the Lord Advocate for the tribute which he paid to the Opposition for the part we have played in seeking to improve the Bill and in seeking to ensure that it will work well. A great many improvements have been made since the Bill was introduced. For my part, I should like to thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman and those associated with him for the way in which they have listened to and often acceded to the arguments which we have advanced in an endeavour to secure its improvement.
We can give the Bill its Third Reading with the knowledge that, however good it was when it was introduced, it is certainly a much better Bill now. We can pass it with the hope and in the belief that it will not only lead to an improvement, if improvement there can be, in the administration of justice in the Forces, but also that it will create much greater confidence in that administration, and provide much less ground for the complaints and criticisms, which are sometimes so exaggerated.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

HOMELESS PERSONS, BIRMINGHAM

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Sparks.]

9.0 p.m.

Mr. Yates: The question I desire to bring to the notice of the House tonight is the number of homeless persons in the City of Birmingham. It is one aspect of the housing problem as it affects people who are experiencing great difficulty in getting any kind of accommodation whatsoever. I raised this question three years ago by letters to the Minister of Health and the Minister of Labour. I called attention to a particular hostel in my own constituency which at that time was having to accommodate more than 100 men, 90 of whom were sleeping on the floor. I pressed on the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Health, by Questions in the House, the importance of some kind of hostel accommodation. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of

Health in July, 1948, informed me by letter that:
It is understood that the National Service Hostels Corporation will be able to provide 1,500 beds in the City before next spring.
Later, in 1949, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour at that time informed me that:
Although this additional accommodation appeared to be necessary in the early part of 1948, as a result of the changed labour situation, it was found later that the existing accommodation secured through the normal lodging arrangements was adequate to meet the anticipated needs of transferred workers.
In view of that, I pressed the matter with the Minister of Health, and in May, 1950, the Minister wrote me a letter in which he said:
As you know, the City Council last year in their capacity as public health authority enforced higher standards at the Winson Green Shelter and certain other hostels with the result that there has been, I am informed, a net loss of some 100 places. Despite this reduction in accommodation, we have not received—apart from your letter—any representations that there is a need for further accommodation of the hostel type in Birmingham, but in view of what you say in your letter, I am taking up with the City Council the possibility of their providing a hostel for men in employment as part of their housing programme.
It was this particular suggestion that I wanted Birmingham to consider. The National Assistance Board had in their Report for 1948 included a passage, on pages 30–31:
Shortage of suitable lodgings is a serious obstacle in the way of efforts to get men settled in regular employment. Some good workers have rough habits which do not commend them as lodgers to private householders and some seem to be temperamentally incapable of settling down, except in communal lodging houses where they can have company, and do not have to bear the responsibility of organising their life. There is a shortage of good communal lodging houses, and those that exist are generally already full. There is a real need, which the Board themselves can do nothing to meet, particularly of good cheap hostels for young working men, and this would be a fruitful field for municipal and voluntary effort. If there were more good lodging houses and hostels it would be easier to reclaim men from an 'unsettled life' and far fewer of them might drift into it.
Nothing happened about this; at least, as far as I am able to gather, no hostel on these lines was considered.
Therefore, I raised the matter by means of a Question in this House on 15th March, and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health told me that the


city council were asked to consider the possibility of providing a hostel for men in employment who had no homes. Since then I have met the chairman and some members of the local welfare committee. I was surprised when I was informed by them that this suggestion had not been considered by the local housing department and that, as far as they knew, it had not been put to them.
Because of that, I felt it necessary to raise this matter on the Adjournment. The local authority certainly conducted an inquiry. As a result they decided to open a hostel for men for use under the control of the police. Men coming into the city late at night, who cannot obtain accommodation but who have 1s. 6d., are directed by the police to this hostel in Dartmouth Street, Birmingham. To my knowledge, that is the only hostel established as a result of this inquiry, which I assume arose from the investigation by the Ministry of Health.
I have discussed this question with the Chief Constable of Birmingham. He told me of the concern which the police have expressed previously about the problem of people on the streets at night. The opening of this hostel relieved the problem of the police to a large extent. People on the streets at night who have no money can be referred to the reception centre, and those who have 1s. 6d. can be directed to this hostel. The Chief Constable informed me that since the beginning of January, 110 men had been directed to the hostel. Seventy-two were English, and 38 were Irish, Welsh or Scottish. But this is not the type of hostel which I think is desirable to meet the present need.
We are told by the Ministry of Labour that there are 50,000 vacancies in the district at present, and men come from all parts of the country. I do not think that a hostel for people who might be regarded as suspicious is required. What is required is a reasonable kind of dwelling in which men can be housed. I have visited this hostel. No one is admitted before 10 p.m., and all must leave by 7 a.m. There are two bedrooms, one with six beds and one with four. It does not matter at what time a man arrives at the hostel, he must leave by 7 a.m. If the police find a man who has arrived at two or three in the morning in search of work, or to take

up a job, and he is admitted to the hostel, he must leave by 7 a.m. In fact, if there is any difficulty in that direction, the police are called in. No refreshments are provided, either at night or before the men leave in the morning, and frankly I do not think that this is the type of hostel that is really worthy of the City of Birmingham.
It is said that this hostel has been established and yet is not full every night. I cannot imagine that it ever would be full in these circumstances, because, first of all, a man can only stay there one night and must prove that he came into the city that very night. If a man had been in the city the day before, he would not be allowed to go to this hostel, and therefore no one would expect to keep a hostel full in those circumstances.
When the local authority made their inquiry, the report of the general purposes committee to the City Council in December included this sentence:
It will be observed that the common lodging house accommodation in the city has diminished since before the war by the net amount of 922 beds.
So we lost 922 beds for various reasons, and these beds have never been replaced. The city took a census of accommodation in May, 1950, and, because at some of the hostels in the city they discovered that there were beds vacant in the summer months, they decided in December that there was no need, as far they could see, for further hostel accommodation beyond what had been established.
I decided to make an investigation myself, apart from the hostel in my own constituency, which is run by the Church of England Temperance Society, and is free but can accommodate only 25 men. This society has pioneered in looking after the down-and-outs for a number of years, and, but for these voluntary institutions, I do not know what we should have done in Birmingham. The other larger hostels in the city make a charge. First, there are the Salvation Army hostels. I made personal visits to the Salvation Army hostels at Loveday Street, Ryder Street, Jamaica Row and Moor Street. These hostels accommodate 470 people. In my own constituency, the Church Army has a hostel accommodating 85, and there is a women's hostel of the Salvation Army accommodating 21, and Rowton House.


which is run by a limited company, which accommodates 801. I have visited every one of these large hostels in the City of Birmingham during the past month, and there has not been a single vacant bed on any occasion when I visited them.
The serious matter about this is that, at every one of these hostels at which men are prepared to pay for their accommodation, men are turned away night after night. There are 1,402 beds permanently taken, and, at Rowton House, which is the largest hostel, accommodating 801 men, people are turned away at the rate of 30 every night. It is a very grave problem, because the important question is what happens to the people who are turned away. I should like my hon. Friend who is to reply to look at this photograph from the shelter in my own constituency. It was included in the last report of the Birmingham Diocesan Church of England Temperance Society Prison Mission, and on it is stated, "No room. Sorry, full up." That was a year ago, and the position today is very much worse. My principal concern is what is happening to these men and women who are being turned away. Is it correct that they are sleeping out?
I have made many inquiries, and I want to take the case of the men first. In one week this last month, I discovered no fewer than 12 men who had actually slept out in the open because they had nowhere to go. Last week, I came across two men who were working at Northfield, Birmingham, and who had to wander eight miles away before they could find a place to sleep. They eventually slept out in a barn. I suppose that in their wanderings they were successful in avoiding the police.
One man who was living in a Salvation Army hostel informed me that he had committed a crime in order to obtain accommodation. He said that he would be quite prepared to commit a crime rather than sleep out. He had never slept out and did not intend to do so. Last week, a man came out of Winson Green Prison and had nowhere to go. When he was offered accommodation at the prison night shelter, he said, "That is no good, because I want to go to work, and I must have a place of abode." He then tried to obtain accommodation at Rowton House, but, after waiting four hours, was unsuccessful. By that time

the Winson Green Prison free night shelter was full, and he was unable to get in.
There is, of course, the reception centre for which the local welfare committee is responsible as the agents of the Assistance Board. There is—and I would like my hon. Friend to consider this in consultation, perhaps, with his right hon. Friend the Minister of National Insurance—a kind of resentment on the part of those who go to the reception centre, especially those who have got jobs. The reason is that, as under the old workhouse system, they have to perform a task from 8 o'clock to midday the next morning. It is true that if they can get a written authority informing those in charge that they have a job to go to, they can be released the following morning without performing this task. But this privilege can only be granted on one occasion, which means that they cannot go back to the reception centre. There is a national regulation which insists upon the task being performed. The local authorities say that they have now waived that regulation, but, upon investigation, I find that it is only waived for the one night. That being so, the reception centre cannot expect to be always full, even in present circumstances.
I cannot say how many men are walking the streets at night. The Chief Constable informed me that during the night of the census, the police found eight men sleeping out. But we know that these men are naturally dodging the police, and are not sleeping in places where they are likely to be seen by them. Some of them explained to me roughly where they were staying.
The problem of women and children is probably more serious. The Salvation Army Women's Hostel in Aston Street, Birmingham, had a case of a man, wife and two children who were on the streets at night. The Women's Hostel was able to take in the mother and the little girl and, of course, they could not take the man and the little boy. The problem of boys is a really serious one. In this particular case the father wandered about the streets with the boy.
In this connection I should like to refer to the experiment in temporary night shelter recently carried out by the Birmingham Settlement, I believe by


arrangement with the local welfare committee. When I was discussing this matter with the officials, they did not inform me they were making this experiment because they did not want it made public in any way. They wanted to find out how many women and children were out on the streets. The report they have just issued shows that the shelter opened on Saturday, 13th January, and closed on Sunday, 8th April, that is, a period of 12 weeks. They say that 41 women and 20 children have been given a total of 279 nights shelter. This is an average of four nights per person. The report analyses all the cases that have been given shelter and in a recommendation at the conclusion of the report, which I should like my right hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to examine, they say:
It would appear there is a need for further accommodation for women at work and also accommodation for women with boys over 5 years old, as at present there is nowhere for them to go. One boy of 10 spent a night in a male reception ward at Weston Road which hardly seems desirable. Is there any way of mitigating the low National Assistance Board allowance during a period of 'no fixed abode'? … Eating out is not cheap, particularly in the winter with children, and cups of tea in a cafe become a fairly frequent necessity.
I think that report supports the case which I am putting forward. I am sure the local authority is very anxious to deal with the problem. I do not raise it in any narrow sense, but I feel that this House and the Minister responsible should take all possible steps to consult with the local authority and to assist, where possible, so that the problem may be dealt with adequately.
I ask my hon. Friend if he will investigate this matter, especially in view of the large numbers of workers who are likely to be brought into the city as a result of re-armament. The matter also ought to be considered in conjunction with the National Assistance Board. I cannot think that the conditions at present experienced in Birmingham are really worthy of our city and I think every possible effort should be made to improve them. Those who are responsible for the hostels have informed me of their own anxiety at having to turn people away in the night. There is a special need for some kind of hostel accommodation to relieve this position, and I hope my hon. Friend will take every

possible step to get some kind of conference to discuss this situation.
If the local authority feel that they cannot undertake the provision of such accommodation, an approach should be made to all the voluntary people concerned, such as the Salvation Army, the Church Army and the Church of England Temperance Society who are anxious for every possible step to be taken. I have with me a letter from the Church of England Temperance Society who express the hope that further accommodation will be provided and that I shall be able to obtain some recognition of the need for increased hospital accommodation for homeless and displaced persons in the City of Birmingham in association with Government bodies, voluntary organisations and the National Assistance Board.
If this situation develops, the problem created will be very grave. We saw in the Press a few weeks ago the story of a woman who died and who had been living in an air-raid shelter. I do not know how many people are living in air-raid shelters. I do not think the police know. In fact, I think that if the police had to find out what people are doing at night in the City of Birmingham, with a million population, they would have to increase their force considerably, for they are certainly under strength. I am raising a grave problem, and I hope my hon. Friend will make every possible investigation in order that it may be dealt with satisfactorily now.

9.28 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Blenkinsop): We have all listened with very real sympathy to my hon. Friend the Member for Lady-wood (Mr. Yates) detailing these individual cases which arise in Birmingham; it is a problem, indeed, that may be arising elsewhere as well. I think we are all anxious, when we hear cases of people having to spend the night in the streets, to try and take any step we can to avoid that situation arising in any part of the country. No doubt, we would all have hoped that we had got beyond that stage in this country.
Perhaps I should explain the action which has been taken up to now, following the very real interest which my hon. Friend has shown in this matter. It is quite true, as he says, that he has raised


this question before and has had discussions with the local authority and quite a good deal of correspondence with us—with the old Ministry of Health as it was, and with the present Ministry of Health in its rather attenuated form. It is also the case that my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), who was then Minister of Health, wrote to my hon. Friend in May of last year, as indeed my hon. Friend has said, and there were discussions with the local authority following that letter. It is true that we did not write an official letter to the local authority about the matter, but our regional officers discussed it with the officials of the city of Birmingham and the city of Birmingham set up its own inquiry through its general purposes committee. I have here a copy of the report presented by that committee to the council in December, which was followed by an additional report in January.
The first part of their report dealt with the particular problem which my hon. Friend had raised originally—that of employed persons who, it was alleged, were coming into the city and, although they had work, were unable to find accommodation for the night. The problem was of those entering the city and arriving so late at night that they had no opportunity to find accommodation. It was stressed very strongly that whatever else might be recommended, there was a very urgent case to be made out for some hostel accommodation of a very temporary character which would enable those entering the city to find some shelter at least for the night of their arrival.
It was to meet that particular need that this very modest hostel accommodation to which my hon. Friend has referred was provided. Indeed, following the special inquiry which they carried out the general purposes committee made that one of the recommendations in the report presented to the Birmingham Council in December. They recommended that the welfare committee
be requested to consider the possibility of providing a hostel at which temporary accommodation for 10 men can be reserved for use in an emergency only after 10 p.m., such accommodation to be at the disposal of the Chief Constable, and to report thereon to the council as soon as possible.
It was following that recommendation that this accommodation was provided.

But the committee also inquired into wider needs. When we consider the more permanent accommodation which my hon. Friend has in mind—something more than just this minimum, urgent-necessity accommodation—then of course we enter the wider field of housing requirements generally. The council have also been considering whether or not further accommodation of a hostel type should be provided, but it must be borne in mind that any accommodation of that kind would have to come out of the building materials available and which are used for the ordinary housing programme.
Certainly it would make a call of some size upon building resources, and it has been one of the major problems in Birmingham to try to attract more building labour in order to get on faster with the general housing work. It was, however, a matter for the council to consider whether they should make any of that type of accommodation available; and apparently they felt that it would be unwise to make any further call upon their supply of building labour, which is already short. It is still a matter for the council themselves to decide, and they can consider whether or not to review that decision and whether there is a good case to be made out for additional hostel accommodation of a rather more permanent character, in view of some of the points which my hon. Friend has brought forward tonight. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Local Government and Planning will, I am sure, be very glad to consider, through his local officials, any representation which the city council may wish to make in that respect.
In addition, my hon. Friend raised the very important and in some ways even more tragic question of the need for accommodation for evicted families. There again, the inquiry which was set up by the general purposes committee recommended that there was a need for temporary accommodation in which the family could be kept together until more permanent accommodation was made available. They wondered whether it would be possible to provide a community hostel, and in their recommendations to the City Council on 9th January they suggested that Swanhurst Camp might be used for this purpose. They put proposals to the Ministry, who felt unable to approve them because they meant the


breaking up of families. We have always insisted, even with temporary accommodation, upon trying to keep families together.
When this point was put to them the council quite understood it and further discussion is going on between officials of the Ministry of Local Government and Planning and the council to see whether revised proposals can be worked out for the use of the camp. At the present time, up to the last moment of which I have information, the camp was being used by the employees of a firm who are doing a great deal of the house building in Birmingham. One will have to be clear during the discussion what other accommodation there is available for them. Even if these proposals fail I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Local Government and Planning will welcome the opportunity of discussing alternative proposals to meet this need.
My hon. Friend raised another point upon which I do not think he will expect me to give a final answer, the regulations issued by the Assistance Board relating to the use of reception centres in Birmingham. I am prepared to undertake to have a discussion with the Minister of National Insurance and to represent to her the points which my hon. Friend has raised. We are only too anxious to take steps to relieve the problem. I think my hon. Friend realises that the regulations are designed to deal with a particular type of problem and were never intended to refer to some of the cases he has mentioned. It is probably a sign of the urgent need for this matter to be tackled on a rather different basis as part of the very real housing problem that Birmingham has to meet.
More than one department is concerned in this matter, but both my right hon. Friend the Minister of Local Government and Planning, and ourselves, are very willing to discuss with local authorities on the spot any practical proposals to relieve these cases. It is very difficult to establish the precise size of the problem. We certainly appreciate the fact that it is probably more serious in the winter than in the summer. I can assure my hon. Friend that his raising of the matter in the House tonight will give it valuable publicity and will enable us to take further steps to get into touch with the local authority and to keep in touch with them in order to help solve this problem.

Mr. Keenan: May I ask, as the position disclosed in Birmingham is so terrific from the housing point of view, what is the position of the Ministry of Labour in this matter? There are vacancies in my own area, and it would seem to me to be folly to direct labour to Birmingham if there is no accommodation.

Mr. Blenkinsop: I think that I should say in reply to the interjection that, on the submission of my hon. Friend, the total number of these cases is very small in relation to the total number of those who are being found employment and who are going into Birmingham at the present time. It is, of course, a matter which the Ministry of Labour do have to bear in mind—the availability of accommodation for those being sent there—but I think that it is important that we should keep some sort of perspective of the size of the problem.

9.42 p.m.

Mr. Julius Silverman: I agree that it is necessary to keep this matter in perspective in relation to the whole problem. While I am glad of the assurances which the Minister has given, this is a symptom of a very big problem indeed. So far as the City of Birmingham is concerned, it is a problem which I think I can say is unique in this country. It is not simply the problem of one large city which is repeated in the other large cities.
During little more than three years, 60,000 additional people have come into Birmingham. That means that in a short period the population of a whole town has come into the City of Birmingham and had to be absorbed by the existing housing accommodation. That, of course, creates all sorts of problems. It is not simply a problem of the present re-armament drive, because this addition to the population of Birmingham took place before the present re-armament drive commenced, and therefore there is every reason to expect this influx to continue for many years and even when the rearmament drive comes to an end. Birmingham has many prosperous industries at the present time and people flock there from the less prosperous parts of the country. This creates an immense and increasing housing problem.
There is a housing problem not merely for those who come into the city, but also


for those who are already there. At present on the register of the Birmingham housing Management committee there are 58,000 families, and the register is being increased at the rate of about 200 per week. That means that there are about four times as many families as there is accommodation found every week. There is no doubt that all these people coming into the city create an immense pressure on the existing accommodation, some of which is felt immediately and some of which may be delayed in effect for two or three years.
It is a broad problem, and the problem of the physically homeless is simply an outward symptom on its periphery. There is a general problem which has to be tackled. I cannot expect the Parliamentary Secretary to deal with this from his own Department because the problem affects many Departments. Apart from those he has mentioned, it affects the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Labour. Somehow or other there seems to be a gap in our planning. While much has been done by the Board of Trade in the direction of planning, it seems to me that only an extension of overall planning will really begin to solve the problem. At present I cannot see any daylight in the problem as a whole, nor can I see any possibility except of deterioration in Birmingham's housing situation in the next few years unless something very drastic is done about it. In the meantime I am very glad to have the Minister's assurances about these particular problems.
I am concerned particularly about evicted families. There is a distinction between the evicted families and the families which come into the city. At any rate, the family which comes into the city does so of its own choice. The evicted

family has no choice. Some of the evicted families come from council houses. In some cases the head tenant, who is the council tenant, has left the district, exchanged for another house or died, and these other tenants are sometimes evicted by the council. That is apart from evictions of tenants of privately-owned houses. There were about 500 evictions in all last year. Many of these people have nowhere to go and the present accommodation provided by the welfare committee is quite incapable of receiving additional cases, and one is faced with the problem of people who, literally, have nowhere to go except the workhouse. Some of them have actually gone to the workhouse. That shows the nature of the problem.
Something should be done urgently to provide additional accommodation so that the welfare committee can deal with the problem of evictions and to make sure that if a family suffers the misfortune of eviction—it is a major misfortune—it shall not be on the streets or have the alternative of the workhouse, but shall have some accommodation to which to go. I hope that the Minister will follow up his assurances and make every representation possible to the local authority in conjunction with the National Assistance Board and give all assistance to see that additional provision is made for these unfortunate families. I hope, moreover, that it will be possible for the Ministers concerned to investigate the whole of the problem, because something very drastic must be done within the next year or two to prevent an extension into what might very well be a housing calamity.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Eleven Minutes to Ten o'clock.